The Delta Arc
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: AU. Now under the command of untried Captain James T. Kirk, the Enterprise begins its first five year mission, beginning with the reported wormhole in the Barzan star system. Now lost in the Delta Quadrant a century before Voyager, relying only on one another, what will change and what won't? The Delta Arc, please leave feedback and ideas for short stories.
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own Star Trek 2009 nor Star Trek Voyager, where I got the idea of this series of mini stories from. Basically this, Spock Prime and Nero in the movie both claim Kirk of the alternate reality has a lot to live up to from the James T. Kirk we all know, so Kirk will second guess himself from time to time.**

**What if the crew of the alternate reality Enterprise prove themselves differently than the prime reality version by travelling in the Delta Quadrant without worrying about their primary counterparts?**

**Please leave feedback for me to keep this story going.**

**Lots of love from The Stargate Time traveller**

* * *

**The Delta Arc.**

**The Wormhole.**

The USS Enterprise shot through warp space, travelling through the warped space corridor common to warp field ships. James T. Kirk smiled as he once again felt that hum, that almost sentient rhythm of the Enterprise, surge through the deck plates. Some officers like his first officer would claim it was a fault of the inertial dampeners, the artificial gravity. The rational side of Kirk understood this, but the romantic side of him believed Enterprise was cheering at the sensation of travelling through her native environment. This was her home.

Kirk remembered the first time he'd felt the hum, when he'd tricked Spock into losing his temper under that Vulcan calm. When he'd sat in the Captain's chair, the ship had hummed welcomly, as though she accepted he was the one meant to command her over Pike and Spock. The next time he'd felt the hum was when Enterprise fired its forward arsenal at the Narada, the Romulan ship that had killed so many Starfleet officers and ships, and an entire world, then going on to repeat the deed by destroying Earth.

The particular hum seemed to Kirk the ship was overjoyed to give the mad and tragic figure of Nero a taste of his own medicine. The next hum was when he'd boarded the ship for the first time as official Captain of the Enterprise.

Kirk's smile faded as he looked over his crew, in front of him were Hikaru Sulu and Pavel Chekov, helm and navigator respectfully. He hoped the next five years would give him time to get to properly know both of them, but he had gathered enough about the pair of them, like how Sulu made a mistake when Enterprise was launched into a battle with an enemy more powerful than herself. Kirk didn't hold that against Sulu, Enterprise was the most advanced ship in the fleet, and some of the systems were unfamiliar to many of the new crewmembers.

In spite of that Kirk had great respect for the helm officer already, their atmospheric jump over Vulcan when Olson stupidly kept his dive whilst Kirk and Sulu had already opened their chutes, then later when the plasma drill the bastard Romulans had used to drill a hole into Vulcan's carcass was being retracted, and Sulu had fallen over the edge. Kirk had saved his life, or tried too. If it wasn't for the mathematical prodigy sitting next to the Asian helm officer, neither would've survived.

Kirk was hoping to get to know Pavel Chekov, but he'd already discovered he liked the exuberant Russian, and he was beginning to look at him like a little brother.

The new Enterprise Captain rubbed his eyes. He'd been reviewing the crew profiles for the last few days whilst the ship had been repaired from her battle with the Romulans to familiarise himself with the people he was now meant to be working with, and he'd managed to commit to his eidetic memory the occupations to the crew, where they lived, what their parents did, everything. Jim wasn't sure how to be the Captain they needed, after the battle with Nero and they'd limped home before Starfleet had brought a replacement warp core the acting Captain had gone around the ship to help the crew as much as he could. The difference to then and now was back then he'd merely replaced someone as commanding officer of the Enterprise, but he was the official Captain now, and they were going to be together for a long time. What if they found he was an idiot? What if some of them found him obnoxious? During command training, cadets were taught that the crew were just that, the crew, not friends or people to get attached to. Unfortunately Kirk didn't believe that, so why was his mind bringing it up now?

" Keptin, is everything alright?" An accented voice in Russian made Kirk look up from his thoughts. Kirk kicked himself mentally, cursing his lack of attention. He straightened up, taking a deep breath before he looked over at the navigator, who was looking at him in concern. " Yes, Mr. Chekov, was there something on your mind?" Kirk asked, hoping he hadn't become a fool.

Chekov, bless him, didn't say a word. " I vas just reporting to you, ve shall arrive at ve Barzan system in two minutes."

Kirk nodded, " What do we know about the system?"

" Not much, I am afraid." Chekov admitted, suddenly worried inwardly. Like the rest of the crew they had no real idea what their new captain was like, but after the Narada they'd learnt James T. Kirk was an unorthodox man. " Only vhat probes sent into this sector have relayed. Vhere is a high level of neutrinos, and tunneling particles."

" Which would suggest a wormhole," Kirk remarked quietly, recalling his astrophysics classes, then he added. " We'll find out when we get there, hmm?"

Chekov nodded, and as he turned back in his chair. The young Russian had noticed the captain thinking to himself, and it wasn't hard for him to guess what it was. Kirk seemed to be a competant man, but he was still untried as a Captain, but Chekov had faith in him.

Sulu's hands flickered over his panel as he said, " Dropping out of warp in 3...2...1."

The warp corridor broke down, shooting Enterprise back into normal space.

Kirk handed out orders at once. " Mr Spock, begin sensor scans. There may or may not be a wormhole here, but if there's any increase in neutrinos before we can stop it, take control of the helm in case its needed, no offence to your capabilities Mr Sulu, but I'd like this mission to go nicely without any nasty surprises, on that note Mr Sulu, one quarter impulse power."

" Aye, sir." Spock and Sulu replied as one. A few moments later Spock looked up from his scanner. " The second planet is inhabited Captain, with a pre warp civilisation. The planet itself seems to lack many natural resources."

" And yet they're alive and probably kicking down there," Kirk replied. Before he could say anything else, the viewscreen infront of them seemed to flare with light even as the proximity alarms went off to warn the crew of...whatever it was. " Sulu, reverse engines. Pull us out!" Kirk took command at once.

Sulu was already fighting with his console, the bridge officers could hear the strain as the Enterprise lost its battle, and was dragged into the wormhole. Even with the ship shooting through the multihued conduit, Spock was as calm as ever. " It is definitely a wormhole Captain, and its pulling us one way."

Kirk relaxed in his chair. He couldn't see any way out of this. " Doesn't seem like a stable one." Kirk replied.

* * *

It was a long trip through the wormhole.

The crew had tried every little way they knew of trying to break free of the wormhole's pull, it was simply impossible to go to warp in a space that was already warped space and subspace. Kirk sat in his chair, trying desperately to think. History was repeating itself, the older version of Spock had fallen into this reality, and the Enterprise had almost fallen into the abyss the Narada and Nero had.

This was similar but different. They were inside the wormhole, any attempt to destroy it would kill them. They couldn't use their warp drive to escape the pull of the wormhole, and according to Spock they were almost to the other end.

Light burst from the viewer as Enterprise shot back through into normal space once more. Kirk breathed in deeply before snapping out orders. " Sulu turn us about, prepare to re-enter the wormhole. Damage reports, all decks, all departments."

Kirk watched as Sulu turned the ship about, then Chekov reported from his readout. " Keptin, if vhese sensors are vorking, ve're 70,000 light years from vhere we vere." Chekov's announcement froze every member of the bridge crew. " Ve are in vhe Delta Quadrant, on the other side of vhe galaxy."

Everyone absorbed that news as the wormhole suddenly appeared. Sulu didn't need the order to set a course for it, he did it automatically. Then to their horror, the wormhole shot away from them before disappearing.

Kirk glared at the screen, then he looked at his crew, his bridge. Their faces frightened him. They weren't angry, their faces were terrified in the knowledge they were marooned here.

* * *

The briefing was harrowing for Kirk because it was the first one they'd hold since their launch, but for the new Captain it was painful since he would need to make decisions that would shape the god knows how many years they'd be in this part of the galaxy. Once more Kirk hated the fact Zefram Cochrane hadn't invented a different form of faster than light drive.

Spock was already in the meeting room, waiting for him along with the others, but Kirk had wanted to try and figure plans out for himself, so he arrived last at the meeting. He'd visited the hydroponic gardens, the shuttle bay, the cargo holds with their supplies of food and water, and their deuterium and dilithium storage areas to make evaluations and to design plans and counterplans.

The hydroponic gardens were a priority now. They supplied half the foodstuffs for the crew, with other plants and trees supplying oxygen for the ships company. There were three gardens onboard the Enterprise, but Kirk was hoping to have three more added on. He'd already found the places he wanted converted. Kirk was hoping to expand their use to not only produce food and air, but to supply water and herbs for medicines. Primitive, Bones might say, but they might need to save their medical supplies in the long run. Some of the drugs on the Enterprise was comparable to gold or silver, and should not be wasted under any circumstances. When they ran out that was it, besides Bones had a good mind enough to master herbal remedies. Kirk wanted this journey back home to be as self sufficient as possible, and he'd wanted to draw the plans himself like a proper leader. Along the way Enterprise would examine plants and mosses to determine nutritional value, and medical properties. The more self sufficient the crew were the better.

Water was also a problem as Enterprise carried a limited amount, roughly 6 years worth as water had other uses on the ship besides watering and cleaning the crew. The bussard collectors were an old addition to Starfleet ships as they allowed the ship to absorb large quantities of hydrogen gas, Kirk planned to have half the hydrogen bled off from energy production to the production of water, the oxygen supplied directly from the gardens.

The shuttles were outfitted with the latest shuttles, including 11 runabout class vessels, large shuttles including cargo shuttles. The small vessels would be invaluable, but Kirk wanted them to be flexible with their shuttles, maybe even build experimental models to take long range trips.

The food and water issues had been practically met, but their dilithium and deuterium supplies were another matter. Like the water supplies, the deuterium and dilithium were measured up to last about 6 or 7 years, depending on the amount of time Enterprise spent out in space. That was when Enterprise was still in the Alpha Quadrant, on the other side of the galaxy their supplies for fuel and energy were now in danger. Kirk had an ace.

Scotty.

If there was one person on the ship who could work out a way of solving their new problems, it was Montgomery Scott. Kirk knew some of the problems were too diverse for one man to solve, so the problems would go out to the rest of the crew.

Kirk entered the briefing room, setting his Padd on the table. He didn't sit down. " As you noted, I came in late. I have a reason though." Kirk walked over to the computer screen on the wall, and tapped in a sequence from Starfleet cartography. At once a map of what the Federation knew of the Delta Quadrant appeared on the computer. Kirk gestured at the screen. " This is what we know of the Delta Quadrant after a century of sending probes and setting up subspace telescopes on the very edges. We have a growing list of problems. First, we are stranded in a sector we don't know the full size of. Second, we may find ourselves fighting aliens, even being forced to cross sectors inhabited by territorial alien empires. Third, and obviously, we cannot send a subspace message to Starfleet to inform them of what's going on and where we are. We're alone here, meaning we have to rely on ourselves. Fourth, supplies." Kirk pointed at the padd he'd brought in before shutting off the screen and taking his seat. He sat still, holding the padd in his hands for a minute, gathering his thoughts. No one spoke.

" The wormhole is not an option for us. We have been here for six hours already, and astrometrics say the wormhole is fixed in the Alpha Quadrant from observations from this end, but the wormhole is flickering from one quadrant to the next like a dog's tail. Even if we stayed in this sector for the next decade, the wormhole may not even come back to this point for another aeon. That is why I have decided to set a course to the Alpha Quadrant." Kirk said.

Everyone at the table looked at one another, not surprised by Kirk's decision. The wormhole had disappeared before their eyes, and their astrophysics lessons at the Academy had taught them enough about wormhole theory to know wormholes were unstable, sometimes even being one way trips to heaven knew where. Mr Sulu leant forward, " What are our plans, sir?"

Kirk carried on, outlining his plans for the ship. He had little opposition on the shuttle or the food and water front, McCoy even nodded in agreement at the idea of using plants the same way medievalists had to treat people.

The Captain looked over at Scotty. " Mr Scott," he began with the Chief engineer, " we need your brilliance more than ever. From now on, you have full permission to experiment with any kind of space propulsion theory, no matter how radical. We need the warp engines adjusted periodically now, so you'll have your work cut out for you. In that time, your primary tasks are to maintain this ship and engines, find new sources of energy, and work out ways of enhancing our warp field without burning off our energy reserves."

Scotty nodded, accepting the challenge with gusto. " Aye, sir." He replied as cheerfully as possible.

Uhura piped up. " Excuse me, Scotty, your transwarp beaming theory, can't that be used to modify our engines for transwarp?"

Scotty now found himself on the receiving end of a dozen stares, and he was sad to shake his head sadly. " Am afraid not, lass. The transwarp beaming theory can enhance our warp field, but it cannae take us home. It might shorten our journey a few hundred light years, but it's nae our ticket to getting home."

" Do what you can," Kirk ordered encouragingly before he looked up around the table. " That goes for all of us, not the senior officers, or the technicians. All of us. We must stick together to get home. We'll not only rely on developing our own technologies to get home, inventions to help us in our lives here, but we shall also be on the look out for other more stable wormholes, new propulsion techniques to help us shorten our journey."

Kirk swallowed slightly. " Many of you have being indoctrinated with Starfleet regulations. I have too, but I must be realistic."

Uhura frowned, " What does that mean, sir?"

Kirk swallowed again. " You may not like what I say next, so I'll say it. Survival of the fittest. We must be ruthless if we're to survive out here. Like I said at the start, we know nothing of this quadrant of the galaxy, and we will probably meet enemies. If we find derelict ships, we'll salvage them to access their databases. If we can negotiate with aliens to share technology, then we do, we also have the option to steal technology. I know that wont be popular among the crew, but we don't have a United Federation out here, we have to fend for ourselves. We don't have a free ride through the Delta Quadrant."

Spock nodded, accepting the logic. " I understand Captain."

Chekov nodded. " Da, Keptin."

" I understand too, Captain." Sulu.

McCoy grunted. " I don't like it Jim, but I can see the sense.

Uhura frowned, then nodded grudgingly.

Scotty, however, liked the thought of new tech to play with, and excitedly showed his approval.

Kirk looked at all the faces around the briefing table before he gestured for the door. " Shall we do it?"

* * *

Kirk stood before the helm and navigation consoles, his speech going through the entire crew. For the first two minutes, he and the command team explained what the meeting had been about, what had been discussed and agreed upon. Kirk could've easily used his authority as Starfleet Captain, commander of the Enterprise to tell the crew their new law, but he didn't.

By trusting the command team, he sent a clear and consise message to the crew, everyone was equal to Captain Kirk, and that made him respected even more.

Kirk finished off his speech. " We have much to do, but bear in mind we are alone, and don't have the luxury of being a few days or even months from the nearest Federation colony or outpost. We were sent on a five year mission, which means we have to work together anyway, but in this situation everyone who dies will be missed. I can't guaratee anyone's safety because I don't know what we will find out here."

One point kept nagging at the back of Kirk's mind. " What we said about possibly stealing other people's technology, ask yourselves this. If the roles were reversed, would anyone hesitate in stealing our technology and changing the balance of power? No, they wouldn't. Neither should we. The Prime Directive, general order one. That is the issue you're thinking of, but bear in mind some races will already have knowledge of space travel, but I will not hesitate in asking for some advice or help from them, bartering for fuel or technologies. I intend to preserve and protect those in need. I may be many things, but a murderous pirate is not one of them, but I assure you I have no intention of allowing that value to override my committment to you, to this ship, and to our journey home. We shall be on the lookout not just for wormholes and spatial rifts, but new warp technologies. We have a long, hard voyage, but if we work together with you offering your extertise and experience in technology and inventiveness, if some of you work on ways to make our journey easier than it looks, then I promise we can get home."

Kirk looked around the bridge, at the rapt attention he was getting, and swallowed uncomfortably, his modesty overriding his ego. " Mr Sulu, set a course for Earth. Engage at maximum warp."

Sulu nodded at the order. " Maximum warp, aye sir."

Kirk made a cut off gesture and Chekov obediently cut off the feed to the rest of the crew.

The alternate Enterprise shot through space into warp. The primary Enterprise and the older Spock may not have imagined their alternate selves travelling through the Delta Quadrant, but as Kirk thought about it, maybe being different was better than second guessing oneself than going down an alternate route.

_Space, the final frontier._

**Author's note. How was it?**


	2. Chapter 2 The Kowtonians

**IMPORTANT NOTICE - Like it says, please leave feedback, and more importantly ideas for short stories. I don't plan on just writing chapters, these will be unrelated short stories documenting important events the Enterprise will go through. Ideas on time travel, alternate universes - those two I want the most - new forms of power, new technologies, faster, faster than light drives - Please don't include wormholes or hyperdrives from Stargate - I've got something in mind in that corner.**

**SECOND IMPORTANT NOTICE - I do not own Star Trek in any form, I just own the plot developments.**

**My thanks to seraphim2db for the Kowtonian idea.**

**Please readers, share ideas.**

* * *

**The Delta Arc.**

**The Kowtonians.**

Kirk sat in the chair of the Enteprise as the starship dropped out of warp close to a solar system. In the past month since their arrival in the Delta Quadrant, the Captain was pleased by the amount of work his crew had done to make their long journey bearable. Kirk knew, however, their task hadn't even started yet, what they'd done was merely the first baby steps into greater issues.

Leaning forward in his chair Kirk observed the solar system they were approaching. From what navigations and astrometric surveying had picked up, the system had 17 planets, and only a few of them were capable of supporting intelligent life. Two of them supported what Spock said were two totally different civilisations, but they were separated by a gas giant.

" Magnify on the planet on the left of the gas giant," Kirk whispered quietly, but Sulu heard him. The Captain was what was now known as 'Quiet Kirk mode.' The helm officer pressed a control and the planet leapt forward. It was a typical Class M world; blue and green with water and land, cloudy atmosphere. It never ceased to amaze Kirk just how many cultures evolved on planets similar to Earth, but it was true not all of them did. A glint caught his eye. He turned to Spock. " A space station?" He asked.

Spock nodded. " It appears so, sir. It's hanging in geostationary orbit, and there are life signs on board. Over 30 of them, carbon based."

" So they're close to us," Kirk mused. " How advanced would you rate them?"

" Very advanced."Spock replied. Kirk turned to the communication station, about to order the officer on duty to send a message, asking for aid. With an advanced species, they would have maps of the sector, and maps meant shortcuts back home, but Spock called before Kirk could get the order past his lips. " Wait, there appears to be a ship dropping out of warp close to the planet."

Spock pressed a control on his console, and the image changed slightly. It still showed the planet, but it's image homed directly on the ship dropping out of the warp corridor. Space seemed to spit the image of the vessel out. Kirk studied the ship closely. Every species had their own design aesthetic needs. Starfleet preferred their ships to follow the basic shape design of the first Earth warp ship, the Phoenix. The warp nacelles held away from the hull, the secondary hull, and the primary hull. Klingon ships followed a bird like design, if ships had expressions then their ships were frowning. The wings were swept back, low and threatening. Kirk knew only too well how many races dropped their weapons and gave up when a Klingon warbird squadron dropped out of warp, with weapons primed and targeting.

This vessel was compact, relatively small, but Kirk knew better than to judge size and power. Enterprise had been tiny compared to the Romulan ship Narada, and they'd managed to survive, though Kirk would have prefered not to think about the losses of life. This ship was nothing like the Klingons or the Romulan warbirds. This vessel was bird shaped, yes, but it wasn't overbearing or threatening its way through the galaxy. Kirk remembered seeing pictures and recordings of primitive space craft, but this vessel was a cross between modern and primitive. Sort of like the old NX and Daedalus class starships.

The eagle shaped craft was slender, sleek, and simple in design. The wings and the back of the ship contained the engines, Kirk could see the glow of the warp plasma in the wings. It was smaller than Enterprise, but it was much larger than a shuttle.

" Captain," Scotty's voice demanded Kirk's attention. " What is it, Scotty?" Kirk asked when he turned to his Chief engineer, who was sitting at the engineering console. Scotty normally stayed on the engineering decks, but when he wasn't he liked to spend time on the bridge to get away from the confines of engineering.

Scotty didn't turn away from his console readouts. " I've just been taking scans of that ship. It's engines are basic warp 5, judging from our standards. But the power readout I got matches that of a warp 8 grade engine."

Silence fell across the bridge crew. " How is that possible?" Kirk asked.

Scotty shrugged as he sat back, his eyes closed to better think on it as his mind came up with all kinds of ideas. " I dunno," he replied, " it could be a form of antimatter reaction we don't know about." He leant closer to his console, and tapped out a scanning sequence. " It's antimatter, okay," he reported, " but the power readout is lower than ours."

Spock was running his own scans. " The higher energy levels are coming from a separate system, Mr Scott."

Scotty nodded, checking his own instrumentation. " I'm on it. Ah, there's definitely a substance in there that's boosting the power grid. The power source is tiny, but its output is greater than an antimatter engine."

An idea was coming into Kirk's mind. " Scotty," he began, " how much energy does this power source provide?"

The same idea was occuring to the bridge crew. Scotty turned in his chair, a smile tugging on his face. " Put it this way, sir, if Enterprise had this power output, we could cut down on our antimatter and dilithium reserves for a good ten or twenty years."

Kirk grinned.

He turned to communications. Uhura was in sickbay, she'd had an accident during an exercise class. " Study their communications," he ordered. " I want to meet this race amicably, but I don't want to start a war. We need this power source."

The officer nodded, and got to work.

* * *

The Kowtonian vessel hanging in orbit of Kowtonia prime was as aware of the foreign starship as it was of them. On the bridge, the crew were monitoring the Enterprise. Physically the Kowtonians resembled red skinned humanoids, they were tall and thin. The Kowtonians, like the humans, had dabbled with genetic augmentation to develop into a super race, but unlike their human contempories they'd succeeded.

Human augments were savages, concerned only with power and perfection, and the memory of the Eugenics wars had successfully turned humanity away from the science of genetic engineering, unless it was for surgery and basic necessities. Complete augmentation, body, brain, etc had been banned for the last few hundred years. Arrogant in their belief they were better than their 'basic' cousins, but the Kowtonians had used their genetic engineering wisely. The Kowtonians wanted only to learn, to become powerful gradually, and to learn from their lessons. Their genetic engineering followed their philosophy, and was used at first to make people recover from physical sicknesses, heart and lung conditions similar to cystic fibrosis found in humans, cancers and other diseases.

Over time and genetic engineering was passed through the generations, the science was used to augment their bodies and minds to make them stronger, faster, smarter and their bodies more efficient. This science was essential when the Kowtonians first developed space flight. For centuries before their space flight was developed, the Kowtonians had been a race of scholars, scientists, and artists. They'd been content with just learning and enjoying the pleasures of life.

Then they'd encountered their neighbours.

A race of people with a similar tech base, at the same pace as the Kowtonians, but significantly less advanced than the Kowtonians in some areas like genetics and interstellar spaceflight. The Kowtonians knew for a certainty their neighbours had not developed warp flight quickly like they had, but their neighbours had developed war satellites armed with plasma and X ray laser batteries in the mistaken belief the Kowtonians were going to launch an all out assault.

They need not have worried about that; the Kowtonians were a peace loving race, they weren't interested in war, but their capabilities to wage war was significant enough for worry. Their ships were armed, yes, but the reasoning wasn't what the neighbours believed. Logically there were elements to space flight were there were enemies, and you needed to defend yourselves. It was a mindset the Kowtonians accepted.

The Neighbours, unfortunately, were paranoid to the point their lives were governed by it, and they started launching sneak attacks on Kowtonian colonies and ships, not the home system as the devastation was such that even the neighbours wouldn't be able to survive.

There were three Kowtonians on the bridge of the ship, watching the Enterprise.

" Why are they hanging in space?" The science officer asked.

The commander turned to him. " They are studying us, just like we study aliens and their technologies. They're simply interested in us."

The third Kowtonian had a more paranoid idea. " Maybe they're preparing to attack us, and they don't realise our technology can detect their spying."

The Commander didn't look at him. There was a growing minority of Kowtonians who believed they should go and destroy the neighbours. The neighbours had launched attacks on Kowtonian vessels, but they'd been beaten off over time, but the Kowtonian youth had begun questioning the pacifistic nature of their forebears.

Oh, they still enjoyed the freedoms and liberties that made their civilisation great, but they demanded a great deal more. They'd grown paranoid of other cultures, particularly the hostile ones like the Voth or the Trabe, but it was the neighbours that made the young people rally in the streets of their cities.

The commander prayed to the gods this vessel wouldn't be here long, if the young people found out about it then there would be more rallies claiming the government were weak for letting aliens into their space. And a lot of the government were starting to see the young people's point of view. Ignoring the rest of his crew, the commander went to his console to send a message to the homeplanet.

This was going to be delicate.

* * *

The communications officer, Travers, was giving the briefing on the alien race. Spock and Kirk were the only ones being briefed as the other senior officers were busy, and Scotty was trying to glean enough about the alien power source to find out how it worked. " Their subspace communications is patchy, but we can just translate it. They speak basic so that helps us when we begin communications, but I can't translate their language."

Kirk was taking notes. " What do we know about them?"

" They are called the Kowtonians, and the ship in orbit of their planet has just returned after a mission. They've certainly detected us, because their commander reported sighting an alien vessel." Travers reported.

Kirk sighed. " They know we're here. How have they reacted to us so far?"

The expression on the communications officer's face said it all. " Not well," he replied grimly. " From the limited messages and planetary broadcasts, it seems the Kowtonians are in a sort of cold war with the other intelligent race in this solar system. They call them the 'neighbours' because they know nothing about them, except they're hostile. The neighbours have launched attacks against the Kowtonians, and a growing number of their youth are becoming angry about it. I can't tell for sure, but the Kowtonians appear to be a peace loving race, but the young people's anger is growing every day."

Kirk rubbed his eyes and let out a sigh. Great, he thought. Just their fucking luck. They find a power source that could solve most of their antimatter and dilithium reserve problems, and the race with the technology was probably hostile to anyone who came calling because of a misguided alien race. But were they misguided? That was the problem Kirk faced.

" Maybe we should open a dialogue with them," Spock suggested.

Kirk looked up. " Who?"

" The Kowtonians," Spock replied as if it were obvious. " We can invite one of their government to the ship-"

" They'll never accept that," Kirk replied tiredly. Then an idea made him perk up. " But if I went there..."

Spock wasn't going to allow that. Starfleet regulations were explicit, and he wasn't about to risk the Captain's life. His friendship with Jim was still growing, and he wasn't going to let him go and never come back.

" Jim," he tried to say but Kirk wasn't having it. His argument was perfectly logical. " Spock," his voice stopped the Vulcan from carrying on, the look on his face preventing even the Vulcan from beginning an argument with him. " There are a few options. One, we can ignore the power source, and its potential to cut down on our supply problems. I can't allow that. This power source could open up new potentials for us, and not just Enterprise, but for the Federation as well. Two. If we send a message they might not believe our peaceful intentions. Three. If we add a copy of the Federation into the message, they might think its a forgery. They might even launch an attack, and if they do that I'd have no choice but to order a retaliation. Again, we can't risk that. The fourth option is simple; I go and speak to them, personally. I'm the commander of this ship, a ship they believe is a spy vessel. By sending me, they might listen."

Spock's argument was just a logical. " And if you are captured as a spy, we would need to rescue you."

Kirk licked his lips. He'd already thought of the dangers, calculated the risks and odds of success. The possibility he'd be captured was one he'd already thought out.

* * *

The Kowtonian commander listened with surprise as his government had received a communique from the starship, a ship called Enterprise. They said the Captain of the vessel would leave the ship via shuttlecraft, and Enterprise would follow to protect their Captain. The Kowtonian commander had already had this Enterprise scanned, he knew if it came to a fight between his ship and this one, his ship would be sent out of orbit, smoking to the ground.

The third Kowtonian lost his temper.

" We cannot allow aliens to come to our world!" He raged, his belligerence worrying the commander. " If they land, they could study our races weaknesses." A paranoid thought came to his mind. " How will our noble government respond when these aliens steal a blood sample to create a plague to use to wipe our race out?"

The commander shuddered at the image, and he had no defence to give.

The third Kowtonian's point had been proven.

* * *

Jim Kirk had never liked prisons before since he'd spent the majority of his teenage years in and out of them, but that was what this felt like. The moment his shuttle had boarded the Kowtonian ship, he'd been dragged out. He hadn't bothered protesting, if the Kowtonians thought he was a spy for some alien power then a few words weren't going to dissuade them from thinking otherwise. So he didn't bother.

Didn't stop him from trying to talk to them, though. One or two of the Kowtonians may have spoken to him, given the chance, but they'd clearly been given orders not to speak to him. That was worrying, and Kirk hoped it wasn't an omen for the negotiations to come. He only hoped to speak to someone reasonable, and not the minority Traver's had reported who were bordering on xenophobia. His hopes for gaining the power source were dwindling more and more. Before he'd left Enterprise he'd ordered Scotty, Spock, and their respective departments to analyse the alien ship and planet for the power source, and how it possibly worked. Hopefully they might be able to create a crude version of it, but the power source had to be derived from something, even antimatter needed to be produced in sufficient quantities for interstellar travel and weaponry. You couldn't make a power source from nothing, hopefully Enterprise could study it enough to get an idea of what it was.

Kirk wished the situation wasn't dire enough for his equipment to be removed the moment he'd boarded. He hadn't even brought a subcutaneous communicator in the fear they would find it, and use it as proof of him and his ship being spies.

The room he was in on the Kowtonian shuttle was dark grey in colour, and the seat he was sitting on wasn't designed for comfort. There was nothing much to see, just four walls, a door and a bunk. Idly Kirk wondered if this room was their version of a cell. Frankly he didn't know, nor did he really care to think about it.

He was also worried about the Enterprise. What if the Kowtonian minority that Travers mentioned in the briefing got it into their minds to attack Enterprise? Kirk knew, although it was unlikely, if Enterprise was harmed in anyway, then there would be a devastating war. That was the last thing they needed. Kirk had sworn to protect his crew, not lead them into battle after battle. That was one of the reasons why they were exploring space, not blundering into every alien mess in the galaxy. He'd brought it up after a nasty Kazon attack only a few weeks before, that if they were the only Starfleet ship here, then they were to keep themselves to themselves to prevent any further attack.

If Starfleet were here, now, with hundreds of ships and starbases, it wouldn't be such an issue, but Kirk's options were limited and the crew knew it only too well.

The ship jolted, making Kirk wince as the gravity plating in this section calibrated. He breathed in twice to make his stomach settle. The Kowtonian's gravity technology was primitive, he'd felt the shift from the moment he'd stepped onboard from the Earth type gravity from his shuttle. Now he felt almost stretched.

He hoped this was just the ship's limited gravity, and the planet was normal for him to adapt. High gravity would squash him down, and low gravity would make him six feet taller, and very springy.

* * *

On the Enterprise, Spock was pacing near the command chair. If he'd been truly Vulcan and not half human as he was, then he would've been more composed, but he didn't care at this point. Normally he would try and keep a calm and logical appearance in front of the crew, but he didn't care about that either.

He was worried about Kirk, just like the rest of the crew. Spock knew from experiences his father went through, and from his own experiences in Starfleet, that races bordering on xenophobia were not very...friendly. Klingons and Romulans were relatively easy to predict, their actions spoke for themselves, but the Kowtonians worried him.

Spock's pacings were noticed by the crew, but they said nothing. Many of them had witnessed Spock punching and beating Kirk to within an inch of his life after the Battle of Vulcan, and they knew he had emotions.

Uhura, recently released by McCoy, watched Spock out of the corner of her eye whilst she kept her ear tuned to the comm. system. She knew Spock was worried about Kirk, deep inside she was too. Okay, so they had a sort of love-hate relationship, but Kirk wasn't some fool. He knew what he was doing.

She hoped.

Spock's pacing stopped when Scotty came onto the bridge. The Chief engineer had been studying the readings of the alien power source in the hopes of duplicating it for themselves in case Kirk's negotiations failed. Spock turned to the engineer. He straightened himself up to show a dignified and composed appearance. He didn't feel it, and Scotty didn't seem to notice.

" Yes, Mr Scott?"

Scotty pointed at the science console, leading Spock over. Scotty sat down and showed him the results. " The good news is the power source looks fairly simple enough, but tha's where the problem is. Even from here, the readings showed regulation of the power supply. It's a similar feature to normal power supplies, but it looks more like the feature of an antimatter reactor."

" That indicates the power source is unstable," Spock mused aloud, to the disappointment of the crew. An unstable power source, all Kirk was trying to do was for nothing.

Scotty shook his head. " Not neccessarily," he argued. " All reactors have the same problems." He grinned. " Here's the best bit." He tapped another sequences into the console, and Spock almost smiled.

" The ore for the power source is within easy reach." It wasn't a question.

Scotty nodded. " Yep. And from the scans, it shouldn't be difficult to find out how it goes. 'Course, the Captain bringing information back is also a welcome bonus and should save time."

Spock sighed. " Unfortunately, Mr Scott, we shall have to do our best in case he doesn't. Get to the transporter room, and start beaming samples onboard."

" Aye, sir," Scotty replied as he got out of his chair.

Spock watched him go, then resumed his pacing.

* * *

Kirk was getting angrier than ever. He was bored to death, and his cool was slipping as he remained standing in the same spot he'd been standing in for the past 3 hours.

The Kowtonians, ignoring his initial good will speeches, had decided he was an enemy of the state. Kowtonian society was democratic, and it dealt with statistics. In this case those statistics represented the more bloodthirty side of Kowtonian nature, as the younger generation had decided an enemy on their planet was a fate that warranted death.

Luckily for him, the older generation had ruled it out, saying they needed to hear his side of the story. Kirk secretly thought it was just so he would condemn himself. Kowtonian democracy even ranged into the hearing as well, and as far as Kirk could see that meant the Kowtonians - every Kowtonian in the room - had the right to make comments and offer opinions. And it seemed each one of them wanted him dead.

Worse, for such a democratic society, they seemed content to talk over him.

" Evidence?" Kirk snapped, losing his cool and dropping the diplomatic act. " I came to your people to ask for help."

" Help?" One of the younger Kowtonians asked with a sneer. " What sort of help?"

" Our ship is trying to return home, to the other side of the galaxy." Kirk knew the moment that went down they wouldn't believe him, but he was hoping one or two Kowtonians had open minds.

No such luck.

" The other side of the galaxy..."

" Do you expect us to believe..."

On and on it went, until an elderly Kowtonian interfered. " Wait." At once all noise stopped. The Kowtonian turned his face towards Kirk. The saying the eyes were the window to the soul had some strong evidence here, Kirk could see this man was incredibly old, and yet he was wise. His body, old as it was, seemed to vibrate with hidden power. Kirk had the feeling this Kowtonian was still alive because of sheer power of will.

" He may speak the truth." The Kowtonian went on.

" I am." Kirk said.

The Kowtonian hobbled over to him. " Tell me, how did you get here? Was it by transwarp conduit, spatial rift, or wormhole?"

" Wormhole. We were investigating a sector of space, unfortunately we got too close. The wormhole swallowed us up, dragged us through the galaxy before stranding us here. We've been in this quadrant for a month."

" Then you encountered our ship in orbit as it came out of warp," the Kowtonian speculated, " and you detected our energy source."

Kirk took a deep breath. How did he guess that?

" And you want to negotiate for us to exchange for the technology?" The Kowtonian went on.

Kirk nodded. " Yes. Our chief engineer believes it would cut down our antimatter and dilithium supply problems."

" How much do you have left?" The Kowtonian asked, his voice keeping the younger members of his people silent.

Kirk didn't like that question, but he felt he had no choice but to answer. " We were sent out on a five year mission," he said, " but our journey is expected to last 70 years or so, unless there's a shortcut. We're not holding out much hope, though, as wormholes are rare and we're looking for other technologies to help us."

Still keeping the Kowtonian hoard quiet, the elder went on. " Why should we give you the technology, Captain?"

Kirk could see the others were waiting for the response, so he knew he would have to make it a good one. He was good at poker, and it was time to see the Kowtonian's cards.

" What do you want?" Kirk asked, hoping the Kowtonians wanted something desperately.

The answer was not what he wanted.

* * *

" Mr. Spock," Uhura turned from her communications set to face the science officer and boyfriend. Spock turned the command chair in her direction, and Uhura continued with a smile on her face.

" There's a transmission from the planet," she carried on, the smile growing, " it's the Captain."

" On screen." Spock ordered, swinging the chair back in the direction of the screen. When the screen changed to Kirk's face, Spock knew something was wrong.

" Mr Spock," Kirk began, " what's your status?"

Spock was about to report they'd successfully transported some of the mineral onboard Enterprise for scientific analysis, then he noticed the four Kowtonians standing near the Captain, two of them clearly young and carrying guns. The other two were clearly people of importance judging by their clothes. " We have sent continuous communiques to the planet surface, sir, but so far no responses from any quarter," the science officer replied, choosing wisely not to tell the captain about the mineral collection with the guards standing only a few feet behind his commanding officer. Spock had no idea what Kowtonian weapons were capable of, and frankly he didn't want to know, either.

Kirk glanced back at the Kowtonians, Spock noting which ones. The two elders.

" Mr Spock, the Kowtonians have agreed to allow us access to their Naquadah papers in return for intelligence on their neighbours."

The first duty of a Starfleet officer was to uphold the Prime Directive, a philosophy never to interfere in the development or internal affairs of another species. Spock himself believed it because the Vulcans, themselves an older and more experienced race than others with centuries of space travel experience under their collective belts, had learnt very quickly how dangerous it was to actively meddle in another races affairs, but Spock had also quickly learnt his Captain, whilst respectful and mindful of the Prime Directive, would just as easily ignore it.

" Captain..." Spock was going to argue, but Kirk spoke over him to push his own argument over the connection between them. " Spock, listen to me," Kirk ordered. " At this point, the Kowtonians hold most of the cards. I want you to take Enterprise out of orbit, and try and find out more about these 'neighbours' of the Kowtonians. Try and get them to talk if you can, but do something. I'm hoping this negotiation can help us as well as these two races. In the meantime, don't stop."

Spock quirked an eyebrow, wondering what he meant by that. Then he realised; the Captain wanted them to continue studying the mineral the Kowtonians called Naquadah.

He nodded. " I understand. Will you be alright?"

Kirk glanced back towards the gun carrying Kowtonians, sighed, and looked back at Spock.

His reply was far from reassuring.

" I hope so."

* * *

" How did this happen anyway, this Cold war with these 'neighbours'?" Kirk asked as he sat in the council chamber. It had been an hour since the Kowtonians had agreed with the proposal for the deal which would allow the Enterprise crew access to their Naquadah research. Kirk had tried asking about the mineral several times, each time he received no response. The last time he'd tried persisiting, a gun was poked into his back. Ordinarily Kirk would've thrown himself at the guard and escape, but not right now when he had 400 people relying on him. Only the thought of letting his crew down, not a good thing considering all he'd done so far - the destruction of Vulcan, taking control from Spock, and destroying the red matter on Nero's ship, to becoming captain.

It had been a dull hour for Kirk, waiting had never been one of his strong points. So, he decided to try and ask questions. He opted away from their precious Naquadah, and tried a more frenzied subject on the hunch they wouldn't resist telling him.

He wasn't disappointed.

A young Kowtonian spat angrily. " They attack us. Each time we try and negotiate with them, they ignore us and step up their attacks," the elder replied calmly. Kirk eyed the younger Kowtonian with trepidation; anger like that was dangerous.

" And war is being threatened?" Kirk asked, keeping his gaze fixed on the younger Kowtonian.

The elder bowed his head sadly. " Yes," he replied somberly, and his eyes narrowed as he gazed on his younger subordinate. The Kowtonian was pacing about the room, his body language dangerous. Kirk had the vision of a tiger in a terrible temper, anger bottled inside just waiting for the fuse to light. The elder sighed again, his body losing its strength for a moment. " It began some time ago," he explained. " Our people had already learnt how to cross the distance between solar systems, and we colonised planets rapidly."

Kirk nodded. " Quite an achievement, especially for a race with your tech level." He knew his compliment was slightly insulting, but he hadn't been able to pick the right words. Besides that he hadn't been patronising; many races had developed highly sophisticated cultures out of practically nothing except a few light bulbs and a steam locomotive.

The Kowtonian elder seemed to see the compliment for what it was, but the younger Kowtonian took it the wrong way.

" What would you know, alien?"

Kirk had been expecting this. The young Kowtonian radiated such hostility it was frightening. The Kowtonian had also been pacing, glaring at Kirk as though the Starfleet captain was the bane of his existence. Kirk had seen once too often in his past people like this, it was always the same. Hell, he'd acted like this himself before joining Starfleet. His training at the Academy, coupled with his Captaincy of the Enterprise giving him new responsibilities and thought processes, made him see you didn't win such a confrontation by shouting.

You simply kept silent.

Steepling his fingers, Kirk decided to tell the Kowtonians something of his own society; it wouldn't be considered treasonous, besides how could they use it against the Federation when they were on the other side of the galaxy?

" A couple of centuries ago, there was a massive war on my homeplanet. 600 million dead. All major cities nothing but ruins. Planet devastated. Despite all that, a scientist and his team built the first faster than light ship. With that came First Contact. In a span of fifty years, everything changed. Mankind became united in ways no one could've imagined possible when they saw we weren't alone in the universe anymore. Poverty, disease, war...all were gone in those fifty years. All because a scientist built a faster than light ship out of scrap despite the resources before." Kirk stared at the Kowtonian mildly. He didn't know the finer details behind the Kowtonian advances, nor did he really care. " I wasn't insulting you, I was complimenting you."

The elder Kowtonian was about to say something when the room shook with a rumble.

Kirk frowned. " What's that?"

No one answered him, several Kowtonians rushed in and spoke rapidly in their native language with the other two Kowtonians guarding Kirk. None of the Kowtonians looked at him when they were speaking. The elder raised his hand and gave orders to the other Kowtonians, and they raised their hands in salute before they left.

" What was all that about?" Kirk asked curiously.

The elder Kowtonian shared a look with his younger colleague, but Kirk found it hard to work out what the facial expression meant.

Kirk began to lose his patience. " Well, tell me. What's going on?"

The rumbling in the distance and close by made up their minds. " The city is under attack by the neighbours," the younger Kowtonian explained, Kirk definitely didn't like the look in his eye, " we're mobilising our fighters to prepare to attack."

" What about my ship, where's that?" Kirk asked as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing.

The Kowtonian snarled angrily, whipping his gun round to face Kirk. " Your ship left before the bombardment, alien! They left so then the neighbours could launch their attack on us!"

The blasters nozzle was black, filling Kirk's vision as the blue targeting sight came on, highlighting the right of Kirk's face.

Kirk felt his stomach sinking as what little the belligerent alien had just said, how could they be sure Enterprise had just left like that, join their enemy? The Enterprise crew hadn't sworn any kind of alliance with the Kowtonians, and yet this arrogant gun happy thug was prepared to kill him at face value.

Taking a deep breath Kirk turned to the elder slowly so as not to have the gun totter get jumpy and shoot him, " I said we'd help you, didn't I? I sent my own ship out to try and speak to your neighbours. If I did that, do as you say I did and ordered my crew to ally themselves with the neighbours, why then would I still be here? Use your common sense. Why would I go to all this trouble if we were planning to double cross you? You have the materials to harness the mineral you call naquadah. With it, my ship and crew wouldn't need to be dependent on dilithium and antimatter to get home, why would I risk that?" Kirk turned back to face the younger Kowtonian, repeating his question desperately to make him see some semblance of sense.

" Why?"

The belligerence on the young Kowtonian's face changed, but it wasn't the sort of change Kirk had expected. The elder Kowtonian had just injected him with a hypo. Kirk grabbed him in surprise, gaping at the elder.

The old Kowtonian shrugged. He stared resolutely, defiantly, in Kirk's eyes.

Then Kirk realised.

" You," he whispered. " It was you who helped the neighbours, wasn't it? But why, what made you betray your race?"

The elder sighed. " Because I am one of the neighbours. Our people are descended from an alien seeding experiment within our own solar system, and as a result we evolved differently. Our views split. Our planet is hostile, our way of life...brutal," the old neighbour looked down at his hands. " The Kowtonians," he chuckled darkly as he thought about his races cousins, " my people watched them with envious eyes, watching them as they developed the technology to leave their planet. Our planet. It's pathetically simple to manipulate them."

Kirk cocked his head. " What do you mean?" The elder sighed as he tried to think of the right words to discuss the situation in a way Kirk could understand. " We have seen how dangerous the universe truly is," the elder replied at last, " my ancestors were beaten and tortured by the aliens who abducted us. When they left, we were too bloodied and beaten to do anything about getting home. So we settled the planet. Its a hostile place, and many of us died. Those who survived passed on survival skills. I am one of those descendents, Captain.

" Then the Kowtonians developed space flight. We stole one of the ships that landed on our planet, copied the technology, and advanced. We'd already learnt about nuclear power centuries before, but the space craft gave us unprecedented opportunities to return home. One problem, the Kowtonians witnessed what we'd done. To take advantage of it, we began a plan to begin a war. This war would unite our race. When the Kowtonians and my people saw each other, they would realise the whole thing was a mistake. Once they'd learnt the truth, the Kowtonians would begin hating aliens more."

Kirk's mind spun as he tried to make sense of what he'd just heard. Two Kowtonian races, both poised to annhiliate one another, one side not even knowing the truth behind the other. Something jumped into Kirk's mind, something the elder had said earlier. " You said something about manipulating, how easy it was. What did you mean?" Kirk nodded as he answered his own question. " You're a spy, sent here years ago, and your orders are to provoke war? But why involve the Enterprise?"

The elder laughed. " Correct, Captain. Answering you question, we didn't involve Enterprise, though it did offer us the opportunities we needed to put our plans into operation. When the war is ended, and our people unite, your ship and crew will be seen as proof of what aliens are. Pure evil." Kirk wanted to jump this guy, but he couldn't. The reason for this was the small gun he'd removed from his robe pocket.

" I have already communicated with your ship, Captain," the Kowtonian said. " They're now in orbit. I've told them as part of good faith, we've supplied you with the knowledge of the naquadah technology."

Kirk heard a sound from behind him, and the world went black.

* * *

**_Three Days later._**

Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise sat in his command chair, smiling. Despite the communication problems with the Kowtonians, negotiations had certainly gone well once they'd learnt Enterprise meant no threat to them. Down in Main Engineering, Scotty was happily tinkering with the naquadah they'd gathered to create their own power system based on the mineral.

There were little issues, though.

For instance when the Captain had come on board, none of the crew had realised they'd been mindwashed, hypnotised to erase information about the Kowtonian conflicts, comm. logs, and place fake ones into their place, collective memories of the Kowtonians, and for Kirk a complete mental erasure of the events and revelations the elder had given him.

The crew of Enterprise carried on their way, unaware that the Kowtonians were now engaged in war.

* * *

**An extract on the History of the Kowtonian Guard Order.**

2345

The Enterprise encounter was the spark of the war, a war between the shared blood of the Kowtonians. The aliens had used the war to their advantage, plying kind and false words into the minds of vulnerable people, when all they wanted was our naquadah technology. We offered them every courtesy, but they repaid us with treachery. Several Kowtonians were killed by the Enterprise aliens as they managed to raid our naquadah database. 90% of the data core was completely extracted, and a computer virus was put in its place.

This act caused seven naquadah reactor stations to explode in their underground reinforced bunkers. Whilst good for keeping us safe generally, in the long run the consequences caused widespread volcanic and tectonic activity on our planet which still persists to this very day.

Only the discovery of our enemies identities saved us from our naivety.

Through our long lost brethren, our people have learnt the truth of aliens.

Aliens are evil, and they must be destroyed.

At all costs.

* * *

**I know I'd said I'd update every month. Unfortunately I've had a lot on for the past month or so, and I was trying to write a different chapter to take this ones place, but I couldn't make it stick.**

**My thanks to seraphim2db once more for the idea of using the Kowtonians.**


	3. Chapter 3 Long Lost discovery

**The Delta Arc. **

**Long Lost Discovery. **

Enterprise was travelling at sublight speeds to take the stress off the engines. Kirk was just coming onto the bridge when the duty science officer turned in his chair, seeing the Captain's arrival.

" Captain, sensors are detecting what appears to be a travelling asteroid, or a moon. It's heading in our direction."

Kirk nodded. " Helm, adjust our course to avoid a collision. Let's let it pass."

" Aye, sir."

" Do we have visual, Mr Landau?" Kirk asked the duty science officer.

Landau checked. " We do, sir."

" Put it on the screen."

Landau pressed a control, and the viewscreen jumped to show the travelling object. Kirk peered at it closely. It was a moon all right, a simple moon. Nothing really exciting. Wait, was that? " Zoom in a little closer Mr Landau, I just thought I saw something..." Kirk trailed off, lost in thought.

Landau checked his readings, and he saw what had peaked the captain's interest. " There's definitely an artifical structure," he said, " some sort of lunar city, or base. Scanning...What, that can't be right. Checking again. It is."

" Mr Landau," Kirk began, " much as I appreciate your direct scientific caution, I don't like being kept in the dark. What have you found?"

Landau turned in his chair, his face disbelieving as though he'd seen a ghost. " I couldn't be sure," he said distantly, " I just couldn't believe it."

" Believe what?"

" Captain, that base is Moonbase Alpha." Landau said. " That moon comes from our solar system."

* * *

Everyone knew the story about Moonbase Alpha. On September 13th, 1999 the nuclear storage dumps exploded, punching the Moon out of orbit and sending it out into space. The loss of the moon caused destruction, earthquakes and tsunamis, and Earth was without a moon for years. The rise of the augments and genetic engineering changed all that; a group of scientists had their brains augmented, and they found a way of compensating for the loss of the moon by using nanotechnology to form a new body. It was the same mass as the moon, the same size everything.

The feat of engineering sounds easy, even in the 23rd century, it was anything but. It took decades to form the project, go over the details and calculations...only genetically engineered intellects could actually do it. The replacement of the moon was one of the many things the augments had over humanity; the scientists who actually performed the engineering claimed if they had not been adjusted, there would be no moon for centuries, if not millenia. The sheer arrogance of the augments beggared belief, it only grew worse when the warlords like Khan Noonien Singh tried to take over the Earth, even by history records, possibly the more caring of the augments to non augmented humans but nevertheless a dangerous man.

The moon itself and the 300 or so people on it...naturally they sent communiques back to Earth to reassure the people back home they were alright, and aside from the quantum subspace transporter attempt to rescue the crew of Moonbase Alpha which failed, there had been little for Earth and later Starfleet to do.

Kirk and the rest of Starfleet had a lot to thank Moonbase Alpha for; without the discoveries sent back to Earth from having a moonbase and a working colony, Man's entry into the galaxy would never have been possible. Without those discoveries people like Zefram Cochrane would never have created the warp drive. Without the moon been sent hurtling into the universe, Earth would never have turned away from nuclear fission to nuclear fusion and eliminated the need for waste dumps and repeat the nightmare faced by humans on Earth in the aftermath of the disaster.

Moonbase Alpha had been a mandatory course at the Academy, and as a Captain of a Federation Starship Kirk's orders on the subject were clear. He was to assess whether or not the crew of Alpha could return to Earth. Indeed one of the biggest dreams of Starfleet was to rescue the crew of Alpha, find the moon, and go down in history.

* * *

Kirk and Spock walked into the transporter room and found the landing party there, all suited up and ready to transport over. There was no atmosphere in the abandoned base and there were no life readings. Kirk surveyed the team; aside from him and Spock, McCoy, two security guards, and an engineer. Scotty was in command until they returned.

Before they put their helmets on Kirk gave the landing party a pep talk. " This is just a recon, we're gonna be here for another couple of days so there'll be enough time to do a proper survey. We don't know what we'll find when we get down there so be cautious. There might be some form of alien life beyond the range of our sensors. Be careful."

McCoy frowned. " Jim, what do you think we'll find?"

Kirk licked his lip in thought, " I don't know," he replied honestly. He nodded at each man. " Helmets."

* * *

Darkness.

Kirk blinked from the transition between the brightly lit Enterpise transporter room to the command centre of Moonbase Alpha. Without any manual prompting from him, the lights in his spacesuit activated automatically, giving Kirk the illumination he needed. The room was quite small, the floor plates had been ripped up where the spaces contained control desks, and the walls were stripped to their bulkheads with only sparse wiring left behind. A movement to his right caught his attention, and Kirk turned to see Spock next to him.

" Now we know why there was no power emissions from the base when we scanned it," Spock said dryly.

Kirk nodded. " They must've abandoned the base, taking whatever they needed and leaving the rest."

" This place wasn't designed as a totally self sufficient lunar city, Jim," McCoy said, coming over to the duo. " Sure there were plans in the long run to turn this place into a long term city to study the effects of life on the moon away from Earth with only the bare essentials they couldn't replicate on the Moon itself sent up from Earth. It never happened of course because the moon broke away. Alpha relied heavily on supplies sent up; water and food the inhabitants weren't able to grow, oxygen, rocket fuel for their ships."

" Starfleet did receive a communique before the moon completely left the solar system that the crew would try to find another planet to colonise," Spock said, indirectly summarising a Starfleet historical file.

" Spread out, try and keep in communications contact with each other and try to keep yourselves in a two man team," Kirk ordered the others.

* * *

The command centre wasn't just the only stripped bare section of the base, every corridor, every computer station and room had been stripped. Kirk and Spock, forming their own two man team, walked in silence as their tricorders picked up information their eyes couldn't. They'd already seen the computer room, and Kirk had found it hard to believe the place had stored what was, in 1999 at least, one of the most advanced computer systems in human history. It was empty, there were only a few bits of rubbish left behind, the odd wire and that was it.

" How long do you imagine the base was left in this state Spock?" Kirk broke the silence as they walked down the corridors. Kirk had been trying to imagine himself wearing the uniform of the time, a cream coloured tunic and flared trousers with a red, yellow, orange, or purple sleeve, and found himself shivering at the thought. The idea he was in such a legendary place and there was nothing he could do about it...it thrilled him.

" It's hard to be certain from a naked eye perspective," Spock replied. " The moon has been travelling in time dilation for years, the fact the last Earth appointed commander, John Koenig, was still alive by the time of the 22nd century rescue attempt is proof that time was moving fast for Earth but slow for them to the point only a mere two years had passed. Now the crew have come out of the field and are on a planet away from the moon, it might be a good number of years have passed since we discovered the moon."

That's what Kirk had been afraid of.

" So there's little chance of finding them?"

" It might be possible, if we can find the last system the moon was in, and check how fast the moon was travelling since at time dilation."

Kirk frowned, " Then the original crew might still be alive, if the moon continuously slingshot around solar systems before moving at light speeds without the Alphans being aware of it?"

Spock nodded. " Hmm, possibly."

Kirk stopped when they came to a door. " This is the commander's quarters," he said, pointing at the name on the door. Opening the door to the compartment was effortlessly easy, there was no power to the system and Spock's Vulcan strength allowed the two Starfleet officers easy access into the room. As he stood on the threshhold, Kirk hesitated. He felt like Armstrong before he landed on the moon, or more appropriately Howard Carter about to enter the Egyptian Pharoh Tutankhamun's tomb. He took a breath and walked in.

Aside from the windows and the basic furnishing that was part of the base and a small table, the entire room was empty. Kirk wasn't surprised. He walked over to the table. There was a letter there.

Kirk picked it up reverently and opened it.

" _I have no idea who will find this letter, considering I've left it on a travelling moon. I am hoping it will be picked up by humans from Earth, though I'm not holding my breath. After four years of travel through space on the moon my people and I have lost any hope of ever seeing our planet again, though our journey to Earth after a failed rescue showed us the joys of Scotland in 1314. Note the sarcasm. That trip almost killed the woman I love. _

_Four years of travel has finally given us what we need, a place to live, to grow again. The previous worlds we've visited have either been antimatter planets, a world locked in a war, a world populated by being who can show you different alternatives - I saw an alternative world where I believed our moon and people would be wiped out by aliens, and everything was destroyed in the following war - and a world where the landing parties were regressed into cavemen after moving through a mist. _

_" Our moon has taken us to many sights. We met aliens of many types, a robot suffering from jealousy, metamorphs of which my second science officer belonged to, a living spaceship, a group of immortal humans on a planet with strange properties who died when they left, and a space brain. We shall never forget them. Nor shall we ever forget the pain and hardships we faced. So many lives have been lost despite our gains, our advancements in knowledge of the very cosmos we live in. _

_" And so we've persevered in the hope our race will survive. Until the message from the 22nd century we had no idea Man still existed besides our little community, and I hope it still does exists now in the future. I don't care who finds our moon next, whether its drawn into the gravity of another planet similar to Earth and has a race of beings evolving on it. I know if that happens, the remains of Alpha will confirm life exists in the universe. One of the purposes of Alpha was to aid humanity in the development of space exploration, therefore answering the question of whether or not life existed outside our solar system. We have answered that question by being blasted out of orbit. _

_" Now, we have discovered a new planet. It's rich in resources and animal life. Unlike other worlds we were able to stay there longer, about a week instead of a matter of a few scant days. Our life support systems were breaking down. The discovery of this world has offered us a chance of life. We studied the planet carefully and thoroughly and found it safe. We have undergone Operation Exodus, everything we had on Alpha we now have on the new planet we have called in honour of Moonbase Alpha. _

_" Terra Alpha is beautiful, the crown jewel in the solar system we now inhabit. Life won't be easy at first, but we shall adapt and survive. If you are from Earth then please leave this letter behind and take a copy. I want this letter to be read for all eternity. _

_Signed, John Koenig. Commander. Moonbase Alpha."_

* * *

Kirk looked up from the copy of the letter he'd taken from Moonbase Alpha and studied his senior staff. " I copied this letter because we don't have the resources to do anything about the travelling moon. Besides that I think future historians would find it more authentic to discover the same letter in the base."

McCoy nodded. " Good idea, Jim," he said. " But what's this gotta do with us?"

Spock answered for him. " One of the functions of Starfleet in the 22nd century was to try and find Moonbase Alpha, Doctor."

" It was the ultimate trophy at the time," Kirk pointed out. " Many Starfleet expeditions were sent out to look for the moon. They travelled for years, but they couldn't find any sign of the moon. Even now there's no way to be sure how fast the moon must've travelled before it slowed down enough to find another solar system. For all we know, the Moon could've been catapulted between galaxies before coming back to the Milky way."

Scotty frowned. " What're we goin' to do, sir? There's nae chance of dragging the moon back to Earth, so what can we do?"

Kirk smiled at Scotty. " Exactly. What can we do? We don't know if the solar system the moon was close to was the place settled by the Alphans, nor where it is."

" I can try to find out based on the speed of the moon, and the gravitational pull of nearby stars and planets Jim," Spock said.

Kirk was a little miffed he hadn't thought of that. " Okay, get down to it. But before you leave I want to know your opinions. Should we take the Alphans home if they've already got one?"

" Of course," McCoy said, his voice showing how puzzled he was his friend would ask such a pointless and rather stupid question.

" Why?"

" Because they've been lost in space for god knows how many years."

Kirk nodded. " To us, Moonbase Alpha has been lost for centuries, but to them, its only been a few years. The original crew was very much alive when they abandoned the base. We all know new colonies have ups and downs, there's a new plant toxin, some new animal that's dangerous. How do we know if some of the crew haven't already died?"

" Do you think we can find them?" Uhura asked.

Kirk shrugged. " We can try, but there's a dilemma. If Starfleet had a presence here beyond a single ship, maybe it would work. Maybe we could rescue them, but we're one ship. The Alphans are experienced in things I doubt we could immediately grasp, but do we have the right to rip a community apart?"

Spock frowned. " I do not understand."

Kirk sighed when he saw the same problem in the eyes of his crew. " When I was a kid, I visited Native American Indians, and I met a group of them who were about to leave Earth behind to start a new life somewhere else. The Indians had a massive area of America to themselves centuries before, then White men came and started building towns, mines, settled on farms, and basically ruined the land for Indians. Just for land. Millions of them fought back against the White man because their people were being slaughtered. I've met the descendents of those Indians, and some of them still feel resentment, even after all this time. The point I'm trying to make is do we have the right to play god with the Alphan's lives? Simply one decision, and the whole population is onboard. Do we even have the space, the resources?

" Or should we simply contact them, say to them we're from Earth, say some of them are more than welcome to come home with us or wait until Starfleet properly comes to the Delta Quadrant?" Kirk looked around the room. " The final decision is mine to make, and mine alone. But I value your opinions. Mr Spock," Kirk turned to his S.I.C. " Please calculate the best possible system the moon last travelled to and once you have, lay in a course. Maximum warp."

" Aye, sir."

Kirk looked over the staff. " Dismissed."

* * *

Kirk stood in his ready room, gazing out of the port window. It had been a couple of hours since Spock had located a solar system on the direct course of Alpha, a course that had seen the moon travel no more than seven years. The thought of ripping people from a home built up over seven years was one Kirk found repugnant. The comm. chirped. " Captain Kirk, please report to the bridge."

Leaving the office, Kirk walked out onto the bridge. " Course laid in sir," Sulu reported from the helm.

Kirk nodded. " Why haven't we gone to warp yet?"

" I thought it would be appropriate if we gave the Moon a proper send off before it can be found again," Spock answered. Kirk quirked an eyebrow at the humanlike optimism shown by Spock, though both of them knew it was a trillion to one chance the Moon would ever be found again by humans. The only reason the Enterprise had found it at all was just dumb luck.

The send off was appropriate for the moon, they fired a photon torpedo over it, before they jumped to warp. As Enterprise travelled to the solar system that just might have the Alphans living on it, though the possibility was still there because it was the closest system, Kirk sat in his chair. He was still thinking about what some Starfleet officers would do if they themselves had the opportunity to bring the Alphans back home. Some Starfleet officers were jarheads, pigheaded...Kirk remembered all too well how he'd almost been kicked out of Starfleet because he'd cheated on the Kobyashi Mura test. Kirk had seen there and then Starfleet officers never thought outside the box when they should, and it had been something he couldn't accept.

He also couldn't accept the possibility of just uprooting a whole community, not when his own resources were stretched thin. Kirk had, was, working hard to ensure nothing was wasted. How many people made up the Alphan population? The Moonbase's history was required reading at the Academy, and every cadet knew there'd been 300 people during breakaway. How many had died since? Space travel was dangerous, and it was unlikely the Alphans hadn't suffered casualties.

It didn't take Enterprise long to reach the solar system. The moment the ship dropped out of warp, Kirk knew they had struck gold.

In front of Enterprise were three small ships every Starfleet officer, human or alien, recognised at once.

Eagles.

Kirk leapt out of his chair before anyone could blink.

" All stop." He ordered.

Sulu stopped the ship.

" Open a channel to one of the eagles," Kirk carried on. " Channel open, sir," Uhura replied.

Kirk smiled. " This is Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise. We come from Earth some hundred years after your last contact. Please respond."

" We're being hailed, sir," Uhura looked up from her board with a smile.

" Put it up." Kirk ordered.

The screen locked on, and Kirk found himself looking at the image of John Koenig. He looked a little older, but he was still the same vital man in those history pictures.

" Captain Kirk. Commander John Koenig." Kirk nodded, not bothering to say he knew who he was speaking to. Koenig carried on. " You'll forgive me for being skeptical."

Kirk nodded again. " I understand your skepticism. If I'd been commanding a base on a travelling moon for a few years whilst time moved more quickly outside, and someone came up to me and said they were from Earth then I would definitely have questions on the tip of my tongue."

It was Koenig's time to nod. " What're you doing here?"

Kirk wondered if it was possible to surprise Koenig, he didn't seem the type to surprise easily though Kirk wondered if it was just a mask.

" A few hours ago, we came across the moon. We boarded Moonbase Alpha. Everything was stripped from the bulkheads, and I found a letter in the commander's quarters. The Moon had been travelling in space for seven years, yet it took Enterprise only an hour to arrive here. Commander Koenig, one of the primary criteria of Starfleet, the organisation we on this ship belong to, is to locate Moonbase Alpha. We have, but if we had the time and resources we would take you back home. Unfortunately, we have problems of our own."

Koenig looked like he was reeling under the information. " What kind of problems?"

How did I know he was going to say that? Kirk asked himself. " Maybe its best we spoke face to face, Commander. This might take time."

* * *

It certainly did take a lot of time.

Kirk and Spock were in a kind of council chamber. Kirk was actually impressed by the colony he was seeing. The Alphans had used their Eagles to build temporary and ready made living quarters. It helped matters the Eagles could fly. The colony was in a valley with a forest nearby. A river ran through the colony, connected by wooden bridges though there were signs of stones being readied to build a proper bridge. The Alphans had salvaged plenty of hardware from Alpha, including their transport tubes. Kirk had seen rudimentary railway tracks being prepared for long distance ferrying of goods and people. Enterprise had already learnt the Eagles were surveying sections of the planet, forrests and mountain ranges for long term study, and some of the exploration of the solar system had already happened, though what for Kirk wasn't sure. There was plenty of the planet left to explore and settle, but Koenig wanted a study of the planet made for their future survival. It was fortunate they had the technology needed at all.

There were children already, little toddlers running round, laughing whilst the adults worked hard to make ends meet. The Enterprise landing party had gathered a lot of attention. Most of the Alphans had interrogated the Starfleet officers about Earth, though it was soon made clear Enterprise had been out of the loop about Earth since their arrival in the Delta Quadrant.

" How did you end up in this part of the galaxy anyway?" Maya, the psychon asked curiously, holding onto her husband Tony Verdeschi. Kirk had been fascinated enough about the alien who'd replaced Professor Bergman as science officer, but Kirk hadn't really minded since he himself had an alien in the same role on his ship. Her alien heritage itself gave the Alphans knowledge Bergman could only dream of.

" We're explorers," Kirk explained. " My first mission as Captain of the Enterprise was to survey the Barzan sector of the Alpha Quadrant, the arm of the galaxy where Earth is located. We're in the Delta Quadrant, the other side of the galaxy. There had been sensor readings, neutrino counts, all the sort of thing you'd find in a wormhole. Unfortunately we were caught in it, and dragged here to this part of the galaxy. We tried to go through the wormhole again, but it shot away from us. Now, we're trying to return home."

Helena Koenig nee Russell, frowned. " How long will that take?"

Kirk sighed. " Unless we find another wormhole, which is unlikely, or some form of faster than light technology we can take advantage of, about 70 years."

The Alphans looked at one another. They'd given up all chance of returning home to Earth since they had no idea where they were as the moon was travelling at random. To think the Enterprise crew were so close to Earth...it was shocking.

Kirk studied their expressions closely.

Koenig frowned at him. " How did you know where to find us?"

Spock answered that question for his captain. " Despite moving, the moon's gravitational course was easy to calculate."

Maya smiled at him. " So you used the gravitational movements of other planets to find out where Alpha had previously been?"

Spock inclined his head politely. " Indeed."

" That must have taken some time." Maya continued.

" It didn't," Spock admitted.

Maya smiled, and turned to the others. " Basically the moon was travelling by being drawn by the gravitational pulls of various solar systems, as the universe is expanding, so the moon is drawn towards them."

" So our journey wasn't random?" Carter asked.

" Not entirely." Maya asked. " All the Enterprise had to do was calculate our trajectory."

* * *

Kirk and Koenig walked together through the fields.

" Impressive colony. I once visited a farming colony when I was a kid, but I've never seen anything like this," Kirk commented.

Koenig nodded. " It has to be, Captain. When we first arrived we used the Eagles as temporary homes before we could put up the prefabricated dwellings. We had all kinds of problems."

" How did you survive those first days?" Kirk asked curiously, glad he'd remembered to set his communicator to record. He'd ordered the other Starfleet officers to record everything to create a record the Alphans were still alive and well.

" You mean on the moon, or here?"

" Both." Kirk shrugged.

Koenig was silent for a moment, then he began to speak. " When we broke away from Earth, there was no way to return. By the time we'd slowed down, we were too far away for rescue. And we couldn't send out any eagles. Besides that the moon was moving further and further away, so in my judgement we didn't bother. We came from a time where we were just learning how to travel through space."

" I know," Kirk interrupted. " But Moonbase Alpha and its discoveries helped form Starfleet, and the Enterprise."

Koenig ignored the interruption. " We tried to find a new home, but there was always something that slipped us up. One time we came across a planet that was formed from antimatter."

" What?" Kirk gasped at the implications.

Koenig nodded. " I can scarcely understand it myself. But another time we came across another world where there was a temporal distortion, me and a landing party were turned into cavemen."

Kirk shook his head. " And I thought Nero was adventure," he whispered to himself.

" Nero?"

Kirk sighed, and gave Koenig a summary of what had happened with Nero. The Kelvin, the Battle of Vulcan, and the attack on Earth culminating in the destruction of Nero and his ship in a black hole. Koenig wasn't that surprised to hear of interdimensional travel. In the years he'd spent travelling in space in command of Moonbase Alpha, Koenig had seen things he could scarcely comprehend. He was stunned and disgusted by what Nero had done to the homeworld of an advanced civilisation he held responsible for the death of his own world, in some different reality. Koenig almost scored a 12 on the Richter scale when he heard Nero had tried to destroy Earth.

Later, after hours of discussion, Kirk beamed back to his ship, leaving John Koenig with lots to think about...

* * *

Down on the planet, seen from space, the Enterprise crew were not able to directly see the colony beneath their ship. Their sensors could see it, picture the size of the colony as more and more children were born, and wide areas of nearby forest were explored and cut down to allow the building of new farmland and homes.

Occasionally an eagle would rise above the atmosphere, and fly to one of the nearby moons and planets in the solar system. Despite having a world all to themselves with no picky neighbours nearby, the Alphans' old habits died hard. They'd learnt how to use what they had, and improvise what they did not have. From a Vulcan perceptive, the Alphans were being logical. Granted the moon they'd travelled on had plenty of minerals, the Alphans had lacked the technology to even fabricate the basics, like raw iron or aluminium. Now they had their own world, they were scared something might happen to make their world uninhabitable. Of course, that was an improbability. Enterprise had scanned the solar system with sensor equipment more advanced than what the Alphans had to hand, and they'd found the sun would last for aeons, but by then, god willing, the Alphans would have the power to travel faster than the speed of light. Considering what their forebears would've seen and told them, passing down the stories through the centuries, it was likely the descendents of Moonbase Alpha would develop advanced spaceflight, and try to reach the worlds the Alphans had touched centuries before.

The arrival of Enterprise and the knowledge Earth had survived, though not without pain, had changed all that. Kirk sighed as he looked through the portal in his ready room, gazed on the world below.

The door chimed, and Kirk whispered, " Come in."

Kirk didn't turn round, but he saw through the reflection of the transparent aluminium window it was McCoy. " What is it, Bones?" He asked.

" I was wondering what your plans concerning the Alphans are?"

Kirk turned around. " You saw it down there, right?" He asked, and McCoy nodded hesitantly, wondering where this was going. Kirk used the silence to push his case in. " Bones, I saw a community. They've worked hard to make ends meet down there. Can I honestly take them away from that?"

McCoy frowned, " I thought Starfleet's orders on Moonbase Alpha was clear -"

" In an ideal world, yes," Kirk interrupted. " But this is not ideal. The Alphans were blasted out of orbit, forced to travel at light speeds, travelling through time essentially because of the time dilation effect. In the 21st century, there were numerous attempts to locate and communicate with the moon, but it wasn't until the 22nd century a few attempts were made. Starfleet captains may have been tasked with charting space, meeting new races, but the dream of hundreds of those officers was to find and bring back the Alphans, and get themselves sent down in history as heroes."

McCoy smirked. " And that's not you, right Jim?" He drawled.

Kirk shook his head. " I've already got the glory I want. Being captain of the Enterprise. That's it. The only thing I want. But back to the Alphans, if I rip them up from their community, who's to say they would adapt to spending decades on a starship, travelling through all kinds of danger...I can't do that, not after all they've been through."

McCoy nodded, he was getting it now. " It's your decision."

Kirk walked back to the window, hands behind his back. " I'm not going to be unfair. If some of the Alphans want to come, then they can. We can leave them a few bits and pieces, and a copy of our databank. They can use it to advance themselves."

McCoy didn't have a problem with that either. Then a thought popped into his head. " Jim, what if some of our crew want to stay?"

* * *

McCoy's question sounded ominious in Kirk's mind. The Enterprise crew had many things in common with the Alphans, and Kirk would need to be blind not to see the similarities. Two groups, stranded in space, forced to survive by any means necessary, encountering life forms that had unknown intentions. There were differences; the Alphans had had only a travelling moon, the crew had a starship and a direction to travel in.

Kirk knew all that, but he was also aware of the temptation that the planet below had. It was like an aura, inviting the crew to transport down, abandoning the mission they currently had, returning home safe and sound.

It wasn't that he himself wasn't tempted, but Kirk had no intention of abandoning his ship or crew, but he had to be a realist. Could they really make a life for themselves here with the Alphans, a group of humans with two hundred years between them? If he wanted to, Kirk could put into place a form of Operation Exodus like Moonbase Alpha, and evacuate the crew to the planet and use their advanced Starfleet technology to aid them in the development of the planet. The next day Kirk watched his crew. They were working diligently, and some of the Alphans had even transported on board the ship and made friends. It was certainly uplifting for the crew to make friends with people outside their own century. Kirk felt like a time traveller himself whenever he saw one of the Alphans, their eagles, their uniforms...and yet he couldn't shake off the fear he had some of his crew would want to leave. Kirk wasn't running a prison ship, but he wasn't running a pleasure cruise either. He wanted his crew to stay, but he didn't want them to think of him as some tin plated dictator with delusions of godhood.

He spoke to Spock about it. The Vulcan science officer pondered on the matter, until finally he commented on the matter. Like the captain and doctor, he'd come to the conclusion some of the crew would want to leave, but unlike the captain he didn't believe it would happen. When asked why he'd reached this conclusion, Spock's answer was simple, logical, and very realistic.

" We could abandon our attempts to reach the Federation," he intoned, " but many of the crew know if we do that then they will never be able to say another word to their families."

Kirk nodded, thinking about his own family. His mother was off on a deep space assignment, and she wouldn't be back at Earth for another 2 years. Would she care about him? Jim asked himself. Winona Kirk hadn't really given a shit about him in her life, but would she be proud of his career path and rapid promotion?

What about his brother? Sam had run off when Frank had been too abusive, not that their mother had cared, using Starfleet as an excuse to get away from the children of her ex. Sam resembled their father more than Jim did at times, though both of them had their similarities. Jim had used his new captain connections to find out what had happened to his brother. He was a scientist, married, couple of kids, but Jim had never contacted him.

No, he thought. He didn't have a family.

Later that night Kirk made an announcement. " Attention all hands," he said clearly on the bridge where he would be seen. " This time next week we shall be resuming our course for home, but I know some of you have been tempted into staying on the planet below with the Alphans. I intend to speak to Commander Koenig to discuss with him the possibilities of some of his people coming with us, and some of us staying with him if you want. Let me tell you now, I am not forcing you to make your decisions. You've got plenty of time. Think long and hard on the matter. You have until next Wednesday to make the decision. Kirk out."

Kirk looked around the bridge, and noticed some of the crew look thoughtful. His heart sank at the sight.

* * *

" Do you imagine some of your crew staying here?" Koenig asked. He, Helena, and Kirk were walking through the settlement. Occasionally little toddlers would waddle up to them. Because she had a hand in delivering them, Helena had a bond with the kids. Kirk smiled as he watched how the Koenigs interacted with the kids, John was like a big kid himself, and Helena was smiling lovingly at the children.

" Truthfully I hope not," Kirk replied, " but you have to admit, your colony is like a utopia. Before we came here, many of us were frightened of spending the rest of our lives, lost in a section of space to survive. Like I said, Commander, many Starfleet captains spent their careers searching space looking for you. If you'd been found closer to home, you'd have been taken home. Unfortunately Enterprise's resources are maxed out for the crew, but if members of your community want to come, then they're welcome too, but not the whole community. Surely its occured to you two some Alphans would want to see Earth again?" Kirk watched them carefully, and saw it had.

" It has, Captain," Koenig said quietly. " Some of us want nothing more than to see Earth again, the places we grew up...but we have to be realistic. This is not our time anymore. Our travels through space on Alpha pushed us to light speed, meaning everyone we knew is now dead." Koenig looked away for a second, and Kirk saw how the burden of command was getting to him. He understood, of course, what was going through Koenig's brain. Koenig had spent so long in charge of the Alphans, he cared about them, he'd sacrificed so much for them, and he hated the idea of losing any of them with the opportunity presented to them by the Enterprise.

As for himself, Koenig wasn't truly surprised. How many times had opportunities to get home arrive and then disapppoint? How many times had Koenig allowed people to leave Alpha - look at Commisioner Simmons - and their numbers had been diminished? How many had died? If Koenig was being honest with himself, he could safely saw he resented Kirk and the Enterprise to an extent. Oh, he'd enjoyed learning about how Earth had developed and been shaped since the Moon was knocked out of orbit, but it didn't mean he enjoyed the darker side of said changes. Koenig was rightfully proud of what humans had done for themselves; gone to the stars, encountered new species, created the United Federation of Planets, but Koenig knew he could have nothing to do with it because it was a totally different era.

Would the rest of his people see that for themselves?

Kirk telling him about his concerns of some of his crew staying here wasn't necessarily a bad or unwelcome development, in a way it actually delighted John Koenig to know Kirk was in the same predicament. If some of the Starfleet crew did stay, the colony would learn many things that could be useful in their battle for survival.

" I've told the crew to make their decision and tell me by Wednesday," Kirk was saying. " Do you think you can sound out your people at around the same time?"

" Definitely. Good luck," Koenig told him.

Kirk nodded and smiled.

* * *

Kirk and Spock were discussing members of the crew whom they believed were staying. The cargo bay had been scheduled for this purpose, and as Kirk walked towards it, he couldn't help but feel like he was going to be sick.

He had to shake himself to listen to the names Spock was listing. " McKinnon? The biologist McKinnon?" Kirk murmured in disbelief. He'd have thought the shy woman from bio lab No. 5 would want to stay on the ship.

Spock nodded, not commenting on his captain's lack of attention. " Yes. She has been speaking about it during her duty shifts."

Kirk tutted as they turned a corner, nodding to a passing yeoman. " So we're looking at..."he mentally checked the figure in his head. " Thirty people looking to leave. That's not gonna be good."

" Indeed. Jim, have you heard from Commander Koenig about potential passengers?" Spock asked. Kirk shook his head. " No. I was going to meet him an hour after seeing the people in the cargo bay." Kirk sighed. " I don't want this, Spock. I've sworn to take this crew home, but is it wrong of me to not accept the possibility some might want to leave the ship?"

Spock was silent as he considered the question. " No," he replied at last. " It's not. This was a logical setback, but many of the crew wish to see their loved ones again, like I told you."

" Yeah," Kirk mumbled. " But I'm more worried about the Alphans. How would they adapt if they do come? They'll have to learn new skills to fit in properly, plus the fact they've got a gap of two hundred years between us."

" They did survive on the moon."

" That's not enough. Don't forget, Spock, these people come from a century that's not ours. How can they live in the 23rd century?" Kirk asked. Spock fell silent as he considered the Captain's argument. He understood the argument Jim was trying to point out, just like he understood the plight of the Native American Indians who'd been forced out of their lands that their ancestors had tamed after thousands of years, only to lose it to the conquerors.

Spock knew the pain that came with losing a home, he still felt the pain of his mother's death. In many ways the situation of the Vulcans wasn't dissimilar to that of the Alphans, but it wasn't the same.

The Vulcan race had been decimated by Nero's black hole weapon, but the 10,000 survivors had already established a new colony, and hopefully from it there would be a new Vulcan race.

But the Alphans were not Vulcans, but they had been forced into their situation by forces they had played with, with terrifying consequences that even now they were experiencing. The colony on the planet below was thriving, there were already plans to survey the rest of the solar system, to begin exploring the various places on the planet for future colonisation. Had it truly entered the minds of the Alphan colonists about what it would mean to travel back to Earth? Many things had changed, as Kirk had pointed out, but unlike his captain he wasn't too sure if the Alphans would want to come. They'd been travelling in space for a long time, it was very unlikely they'd want to travel in space for a long period again, subjected to all kinds of danger.

Kirk needn't have worried about losing any member of his crew. When they walked into the bay, there was no one there.

* * *

Koenig met Kirk in the Captain's ready room. Despite having already seen the ship, Koenig couldn't help but compare the Enterprise with the Eagles he was used to. Kirk had been prepared for the meeting, and he had some coffee waiting for Koenig.

" Captain," Koenig greeted, shaking Kirk's outstretched hand.

" Commander," Kirk smiled, holding out a cup of coffee to his guest. Koenig accepted it with a ' thank you,' and he sipped it gratefully. For a while neither man spoke. Finally Koenig spoke. " Did many decide to leave?" Was that concern in Koenig's voice? Kirk wasn't sure.

Kirk sighed. " No. No-one's staying. I was frightened some of the crew would stay because they're needed here."

" But life in space, especially on a moon or a starship's too dangerous," Koenig nodded in understanding. He wasn't surprised none of Enterprise's crew wanted to stay. They simply came from two different times, and why risk that when they could see their families again? Koenig had long since lost any hope of seeing his homeworld again. With his duties as Commander of Moonbase Alpha, Koenig had to be realistic. There was simply no way for the Alphans to change the course of the moon, and boy had Koenig wanted to be able to do that. Travelling through space at speeds the instruments of Alpha had never been designed to measure, Koenig knew, even if they had the power, there was no way for them to actually return home to the time they'd left. The theory of relativity was in full effect, something all the Alphans had known unlike Simmons who'd kept badgering Koenig into trying to find a way of going home, the 22nd century sending them into the past was proof time was going fast outside the moonbase, and everyone had to accept they would never see their loved ones again.

" Captain," Koenig began to break the contemplative silence. " I've met with my people, and I gave them the opportunity to leave the colony and travel home, like you did with your crew who wanted to stay."

Kirk nodded. " What did they say?"

" We've built a new life on the planet," Koenig replied. " Before that, our life on Alpha made sure we had to look outwards instead of behind. We've become used to the knowledge we'll never see Earth again, and from what we've heard of your journey, you've still got years to go. My people know how dangerous space travel is, and frankly they're tired of it. It's time for us to rest, and hopefully in the future other Starfleet officers will come here."

" Understandable. I understand completely." Kirk stood up, the motion followed by Koenig. Kirk smiled, and held out his hand.

" Good luck, Commander Koenig." Kirk said.

Koenig grinned toothily. " And to you, Captain Kirk. I think the future of Earth's exploration of space is in excellent hands."

Kirk nodded, grinning one of his heroes was complimenting him. " Thank you."

* * *

_Captain's log. _

_We have left the Alphan's new colony Terra Alpha, and resumed our course for home. We have made an exchange in technology, we have given the Alphans access to our more advanced weapons, tricorders, communicators and phasers, and we've supplied them with a runabout fitted with a copy of our database to help them advance their technology, and bring them to 23rd century standards. The runabout is also a symbol, you are not alone. For many years the Alphans speculated life on Earth had ceased to exist when the moon was blasted out of orbit, but now the proof Humans survived on Earth has meant the Alphans have something to believe in. _

_In return for the runabout, I have a gift._

* * *

Kirk ended the entry with a tap on his personal computer. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, but he didn't get up after he'd filed the log. Instead he pikced up a device on his desk. It was an Alphan comlock. Kirk smiled as he ran his fingers on the ancestor of the communicator.


	4. Chapter 4 The Borg Salvage

**I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while; I was putting off this story until I'd seen the new Star trek movie to gain ideas and insights, plus I've been busy writing my novella. Also unless someone has any ideas I don't own Star Trek, just the story. **

**The Delta Arc. **

**The Borg Salvage. **

Captain's log. Since our arrival in the Delta quadrant, we have been hearing of a powerful race known as the Borg. According to our intel they go about gathering cultures and technology, but they destroy the individuality of those cultures. The Talaxian traders and other merchants and space travellers we've met and others have told my crew horror stories about the Borg, how they turn innocent beings into cybernetic hybrids. So far we have been lucky enough to avoid them.

Until now.

James Kirk sat straight in the command chair as he looked at the team leader assigned on the charting mission on the viewing screen, in this case Nyota Uhura. Since their arrival in the Delta quadrant there had been an upsurge in the science departments; physics, astrophysics, chemistry, botany to have a free cut of the booty of the new sector of the galaxy. Enterprise had been exploring an asteroid belt in the hopes of discovering highly needed minerals to add to the ships stores whilst a runabout had been dispatched to survey the next solar system and wait for the mother ships arrival in another week, giving them plenty of time to do their survey and make a valued report. In keeping with the ships policy, there had been a limitation on alien contacts to prevent less advanced races or more advanced ones deciding the Enterprise was fair game. That didn't mean they hadn't made contact with alien races though, there had been first contacts that had proven beneficial; new technologies, charts of the regions to help Enterprise make course corrections, Kirk had no problem with that.

Because the Enterprise crew was only one Starfleet crew in this remote sector of the galaxy they could not afford to put the ship in too much danger. Kirk knew the mandate for Starfleet was to explore, and he was doing that, but he also had to make sure his crew were not put in danger from insane reasons. Kirk knew that Starfleet command would take note of the lack of First contacts, but they had made contact with various races to gather intelligence and technologies in exchange of trinkets.

The runabouts criteria had been expanded; they were now used as recon vessels. A group of scientists, engineers, and a small security detachment for their protection, commanded by a member of the command team was now a common routine on the Enterprise. The idea of a command team member in charge of said missions was Spock's idea; the half Vulcan had stated it was a way of showing the crew the command staff were willing, and able, to maintain their policies of sharing the rigors of the Delta quadrant.

" Are you sure about this?" Kirk asked only to hope he was dreaming. Uhura had been sent on a recon mission to explore a nearby solar system with her team. This wasn't what they'd expected.

Uhura's lovely face was as scared and excited as Kirks. " Yes, sir. It's definitely a Borg ship, and its shaped like a perfect sphere. It just drifted into our flight path."

The mission pilot interrupted at that point. " I had to turn the inertial dampeners to maximum to avoid a collision."

" That explains why our long range scans hadn't picked it up, then again we weren't looking for a Borg sphere," Spock said from his place next to the Captain's chair.

Uhura nodded, fixing her eyes on Kirk. " What should we do, sir?"

Kirk sat still, thinking. Plans and counter plans shot through his head. Spock interrupted his thoughts. " Captain, Lieutenant Uhura's exploratory mission to the solar system is important-"

" I know that, Mr Spock," Kirk spoke over his first officer. He sighed, and then he pulled out his communicator. " Kirk to Scott."

" Scott here, sir."

Kirk sighed. " How is the survey going?"

" We've explored a sizeable chunk of the asteroid field, sir," Scotty replied. " We've found only the most basic of ores. Nothing we can use unless we want to start a bronze and iron age."

Kirk sighed again. " Scotty, Uhura's just found a Borg sphere drifting in space. We're going to rendezvous with her, and we're gonna board that ship for salvage."

" Captain?" Spock asked questioningly, and other members of the bridge crew turned to look at their Captain as if he'd taken leave of his senses.

Annoyed his decision was being picked apart by his first officer, Kirk looked at everyone, and kept his link open with Uhura and Scotty. " From what we've heard, the Borg consume alien races and technologies. This is a rare opportunity to learn about them. Besides I don't want us to encounter them any time soon. If we're lucky we can download their database and learn of ways of fighting them. In the future Starfleet will reach this part of the galaxy, and we've gotta be prepared."

Spock nodded, accepting that flawless logic, and Scotty didn't have a problem with it either for a totally different reason. " Captain, from what we've heard about the Borg, they use transwarp technology to move through space."

Kirk nodded, he'd already thought of that, but it was nice for Scotty to make the announcement to make it sound it was worth the risk. " We'll leave a few probes here to check out the rest of the field. In the meantime pack up your teams and return to the ship. I want to leave within an hour."

Scotty was about to argue with the timetable, but he bit his tongue when he remembered the Borg sphere. " Aye, sir."

Kirk closed the connection, remembering Uhura. " Stay where you are," he ordered her. " Don't beam on that ship whatever you do. As soon as we arrive, carry on with the recon mission and we'll see you when we see you. Monitor that ship, take scans, but remember what we've learnt about the Borg."

" Believe me, sir, you don't have to tell us twice."

Kirk smiled. " Good."

* * *

Subspace was warped, twisted, and molded into a tunnel as Enterprise shot through it, isolated from the laws of physics as she rode to the co-ordinates of the runabout and the Borg sphere.

Sulu turned his head to the command chair. " Sir, we'll drop out of warp in another five minutes."

Kirk nodded. " Red alert. Keep weapons powered. This is a Borg ship we're gonna be dealing with, and I want everyone prepared for anything."

" Aye, sir." Sulu's hands flicked over the appropriate controls on his console.

Kirk ignored the sirens, and turned to Spock. " Mr Spock."

Spock came over from his post at once. Kirk got straight to the point. " When we drop out of warp, you and I will transport over to the sphere. We'll lead two teams, and we'll take two mapping bots with us to chart out the sphere's interior."

Spock nodded and Kirk went on with his plan. " We'll be heavily armed, I want everyone in both teams to be aware of the dangers we might encounter. The more vigilant we are, the better."

" I agree. Sir, how long will we be studying the sphere? Lieutenant Uhura's supplies are finite for two weeks." Spock said.

Kirk thought it over, and then turned to the communications officer in charge until Uhura came back. " Lieutenant Palmer," the blonde haired officer turned to him, " send a message to the runabout. Tell them we'll transport extra supplies of food and water to them as soon as we drop out of warp."

Palmer nodded. " Aye sir."

Sulu called from his station. " All stop in six, five, four, three, two...one."

There was a flash of light as the warp tunnel spat the Enterprise out of faster than light travel. Kirk's eyes widened when he saw the Borg sphere. He'd heard stories of the Borg ships, yeah, but he'd never actually seen one in pictures. Mostly people shot to warp at the first sight of these things, but Kirk had always imagined them to be the stuff of nightmares.

The Borg sphere was, as Uhura had described, perfectly shaped from a geometric point of view. It was a leaden gray in color. It looked like someone had taken a perfectly shaped orange, and turned it inside out, though in this case instead of juice and orange pulp what Kirk was seeing was conduits and piping exposed to space. It certainly looked lifeless, Kirk mused to himself.

Lieutenant Palmer interrupted his thoughts. " Captain?" she called.

Kirk turned his chair to her.

" Lieutenant Uhura's supplies have been transported onboard," she said. " She's opened a channel."

Kirk swiveled back to look at the viewer. " Open it, put her up."

Uhura's face appeared on the screen. " Captain, thanks for the supplies."

Kirk nodded. " It was Mr Spock's observation. How's it been here?"

Uhura shrugged knowing her commanding officer wouldn't mind the casualness of the gesture. " It's been quiet. No energy signatures, no lifesigns. We've checked the scanners twice, it's confirmed. That Borg sphere's completely inactive. There is an atmosphere, though."

" Good, it makes things easier for the boarding parties. Mr Spock and I were preparing to transport on board the sphere to begin our investigation."

Uhura nodded, keeping her personal fears quiet, and looked a little uncertain. " Be careful."

That was it. Uhura had said her piece, and she cut the connection.

Sulu looked at his board. " The runabout has gone to warp five, sir. They're resuming their course towards the solar system."

Kirk turned to Spock. " Let's get ready. Mr Sulu, take us into transporter range."

* * *

They came close together in the void, the blackness of space. Two starships of different sizes and designs, constructed by two races with radically different philosophies; the Borg sphere, massive and leaden gray, its conduits and technology exposed to the vacuum, with no visible sign of propulsion. But it was a formidable ship, it was capable of destroying entire fleets of ships with no visible effort.

Then there was the Enterprise, a ship constructed in another part of the galaxy. Starfleet ships were practical as well as aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The way the ship was designed spoke of practicality and efficiency with art deco added on for good measure. There was a logic in the way the ship was designed; warp engines mounted on nacelles held away from the engineering section to provide a stable hull geometry, and the primary hull separated by a neck to grant two different sections of the ship with crew quarters, laboratories, recreation areas, and the engineering sections were devoted to power generation and faster than light technology.

Together the two ships came closer, one lifeless, the other fully powered.

* * *

Kirk looked at the two teams; McCoy was in his, so was Scotty and a full troop of engineers and science officers were with both teams with a full contingent of security guards. Everyone was well armed, equipped with tricorders, communicators and phasers.

" We're going to transport the bots on board first to map out the interior of the ship before we transport onboard," Kirk told them. " The maps will be downloaded into the tricorders." With a look over to Spock, Kirk let the science officer continue with the briefing. " Those tricorders are also interfaced with our transporter sensors to ensure no one gets lost on that ship."

" We stay together, no one wanders off. If you see something, don't touch it. You call for help, understood?" Kirk glared at each of them to ensure this went through their brains. Everyone nodded in turn.

Kirk softened his face and turned to the transporter chief. " Beam the bots on board."

The chief nodded. " Aye sir," he replied, working on the console.

The bots were spherical, and they hovered over their respective transporter pads, waiting. Their sensors and mapping scanners had been primed and programmed for their mission. The transporter chief finished on the controls, and beamed the bots over to the Borg ship.

" Links established, sir," he said after a moment. The bots were already moving through the Borg sphere, moving at an incredible rate as they charted the vessels interior to make the salvage easier. Kirk checked his tricorder. So far so good. He looked over at Spock. " We'll beam on board at different points where the bots materialised in the ship."

" Aye, sir."

" My team will go first," Kirk carried on. " Lets move on," he said to his team. " Follow on as soon as we transport on board." He said to Spock.

" Aye, sir." Spock looked over at his team as the Captain's party stepped onto the pad. " Energise."

Kirk's forward sight was engulfed by light, and soon the gleaming Enterprise transporter room disappeared. Instantly Kirk switched on his headlight to see better. It was clear the Borg weren't interested in decoration; there were a number of slots, alcoves, arranged around the walls. A few of them were occupied. Kirk whipped out his phaser on reflex, but he knew they were dead. McCoy hurried forwards with his tricorder, and examined the corpses.

" No need to worry, Jim," he reassured. " They're dead."

A little ashamed and embarrassed by his reaction Kirk put his phaser away, but he kept his hand on it. " Any idea what killed them?"

McCoy ran more scans over the drones. " Not without a proper autopsy."

" Have them transported to the ship," Kirk said at last after a moments of thought. " You can examine them later. In the meantime they aren't to be touched, not by anyone."

McCoy nodded, and he took his communicator out to arrange it. When both corpses were beamed away, Kirk took out his tricorder. " Right, there should be a large chamber, just that way." He pointed down a corridor.

* * *

Spock was aware of the human fear of the dark. It was something every human shared as children but eventually grew out of. As a Vulcan, Spock knew rationally there was no such thing as ghosts or goblins, but his human half was reminded of these horrors as he walked down the corridors of the Borg sphere. Only instead of monsters with more than one eye, Spock knew from the Borg stories, some of them which may have been exaggerated by the people the Enterprise had met and interacted with...But Spock was concerned here. Who knew what horrors this ship had on board?

" Mr Spock," one of the engineers held out his tricorder, pointing at a section of wall with what looked like a computer outlet. " That appears to be a computer system. We can get it running, and we can begin our download from there."

Spock nodded. " Very well. Proceed, but do not activate other sections of the ship."

" Yes, sir." The officer replied, offended.

* * *

Kirk was more than happy a few hours later to return to the Enterprise. The Borg ship was creepy. He sat in his chair in the briefing room, listening to the reports from Scotty, Spock and McCoy. The briefing room was packed with security, science, medical, and other officers.

" According to our scans, the Borg sphere's activity ceased three years ago," Spock began.

" Any idea on what caused it?" Roughly translated, could the same thing happen to us.

" Aye. It was an electrokinetic storm, it broke through the Borg shields like paper, and electrocuted the crew." Scotty replied.

McCoy grunted. "Yeah, that fits with the brief exam I took on the sphere. I only need an autopsy to confirm it."

Kirk stood up and walked around, the crew getting out of the way. " Okay, what about the database?"

Spock answered that question. " We've downloaded and uploaded in our computer at least a quarter of the Borg database. We've gathered information about astrometric scans about a region with a radius of 80,000 light years. We've put that into the stellar cartography database. We've also gathered information about medical technology, and a portion of the engineering database."

Scotty perked up. Kirk held up his hand to forestall any questions. " How much longer will it take to go through the database, and upload it into Enterprise's computer?"

" Another five hours."

Kirk could've had them hurry it along, but the more time on their hands meant knowing and learning more about the Borg from the database that had been uploaded so far. " Fine. Use what we've got so far. I want engineering to study the engine and power systems common to the Borg, and other innovations developed by other races. That's in your remit, Scotty. If any more people are sent to the sphere, make sure they are commanded by the most senior officers you've got. That goes for everyone. We haven't come this far already to find ourselves in the middle of a Borg trap."

He turned to Spock and his team of scientists. " For science, your jobs are simple; go through the database, look into the new stellar cartography charts, and just log it into the system. Also help engineering with the technologies, learn how they work and see if we can use them. Note down how we can use it. Those are two of your priorities; I want you also to understand the Borg. Work with medical and security."

Kirk looked around the rows of faces. " All of you will have to do your own work, but you'll do more than that. I want each of you to work on ways of fighting and defeating the Borg. Yes, they're powerful, but I want to use tactics against them that have never happened before. I want improvements done to the ship, weapons, propulsion...Everything. If we have to fight the Borg, I want ways of minimalising needless deaths. Security, I want to find out if we can use traps, some way to wipe out any Borg who beam on board. We know they've got a tactical advantage with transporters, and they can maybe beam through shields. Then again they might not. I want to know."

The captain turned to Scotty. " In the meantime, Mr Scott. Try to work on the transwarp system on the Borg ship."

" Aye, sir." Scotty nodded.

* * *

In the five hours the salvage party transported onto the Borg ship, more members of the crew had transported as well. Kirk himself had decided to stay on Enterprise and review personally what was in those databases. In the meantime he was on his way to sickbay to speak to Bones.

When he entered the sickbay he saw McCoy standing over a few components taken from one of the drones. Normally Kirk would march over boisterously and slap his friend on the back, but McCoy's posture was proof enough it was a bad idea.

Instead he announced his presence quietly. " Bones," he said.

McCoy looked up and grunted. " Jim." That was it, back to work.

Nonplussed, Kirk came over to stand next to the good doctor. He cast his eyes over the Borg hardware. It was one thing to see this stuff mounted on humanoid bodies, but to see them in pieces...

" What've you found out?"

McCoy sighed; Jim wasn't going to let this go. " I've learnt of more about cybernetics studying these pieces, and that corpse," he waved a hand carelessly back by the corpse several of his assistants were going over. " I tell ya, Jim, I'm delighted I've got a copy of that Borg database otherwise I'd have trouble going through this stuff without making a mistake, and bring those drones back to life."

" You can do that?" Kirk asked.

McCoy nodded. " Yeah. But obviously I'm not gonna do that."

Kirk changed the subject quickly. " What've you learnt?"

" Their bodies are flooded with implants internally as well as externally. Some of those implants are in the place of organs, there are clear signs." McCoy picked up an eyepiece. " Look at that."

Kirk took it and held it up to the light. " An eyepiece. More sophisticated than any kind of bionic eye I've ever imagined."

" It can also see in ranges our scanners can barely pierce," McCoy added before he took the eye piece back, and picked up the arm. " I was expecting to amputate this thing, but it just simply clipped off."

" Just like that?"

McCoy grunted. " It's incredible. This arm can interface with dozens of technologies, and more. I'm still working on it."

" Yeah, well be careful. Some of the stories we've heard say the Borg make use of booby traps to assimilate their victims into the collective."

McCoy grinded his teeth. " Yeah, tell me something I don't know."

* * *

Spock and a spokesman from the stellar cartography labs stood on either side of the wall monitor in the briefing room before the senior staff members, or those that could be spared. McCoy was still in sickbay, Uhura was still commanding the survey mission, and Scotty was in Main engineering reviewing the Borg technical database, but he was still monitoring this meeting.

On the monitor was a large section of space, encompassing planetary systems, asteroid belts, pulsars and nebulas separated by light years that would take slower than light vessels centuries to traverse, but ships like Enterprise would get there in a short span, maybe a couple of years. The map was unique compared to other starcharts, where the only thing holding the planets, moons and pulsars together was gravity. But this map was different because thanks to stellar cartography, the Enterprise crew had a view no matter how dated about the range of Borg territory.

" The nearest Borg outpost is over eight months away at maximum warp," the spokesman pointed to a point on the screen where there was a solar system. " The sphere was probably a recon vessel, sent to assess potential species for assimilation."

Kirk looked at the jagged, but somehow perfect lines on the map representing the borders of Borg space. One of the many benefits of being in the Delta quadrant was the acquisition and formation of diplomacy with various races, the exchange of various goods, as well as pointers for races to avoid. The Borg, the Voth, and several other races were at the top of the list, and unfortunately the Enterprise crew had already made contact with the Voth, or at least a small ship with a dead crew. The ship was in the shuttlebay, and Scotty had spent so much of his free time trying to figure out how the damn thing worked. Only a small amount of the knowledge and technology of the ancient saurian species which had originally descended from Earth.

Other contacts like the Mikhal travellers, a race of nomads without a proper governing body, had helped shape the knowledge of the Delta quadrant for the crew.

But looking at this map made Kirk think about the long time benefits and repercussions of knowing more about the collective. " That sphere has been left in the vacuum of space disabled for the past three years. Why would the Borg do that? Surely they're aware of the salvage's finders keepers rule?"

Spock cocked his head. " It's possible the Borg are not even aware of this," he said thoughtfully. " From the limited amount of information we have learnt about the collective, and the information already downloaded, the Borg collective have a hive mind. The Borg were possibly separated from this ship because they believed it to have been destroyed."

Sulu studied the map. " Is this map accurate?"

The stellar cartography crewman glanced at the screen. " This is what we've learnt from the database. It's likely considering what we know about the Borg's rate for consumption and expansion that this map is out of date." He pointed towards the screen where there were three faint lines on the screen. They were hardly noticeable, they were rough as though the person or computer who'd plotted them had only a small amount of data to chart them, but Kirk had already guessed they were possible locations for the new borders of the Borg sphere of influence. The spokesman confirmed it.

" These three lines, taken from our analysis, are a rough calculation of how far the Borg have advanced," he said.

" Doesn't seem accurate," Chekov commented.

" It doesn't need to be accurate," Kirk interrupted. " If you want accuracy, Mr Chekov, then take a runabout and go into Borg space." He pointed at the screen showing the lines, and looked at his chief navigator pointedly. The young Russian wilted, and Kirk felt a little guilty for chiding him, but Chekov needed to see this information, out of date by three years as it were, was better than nothing.

Kirk got up from his chair and addressed the group. " This Borg sphere, out of date, doesn't matter. The point is, as Mr Chekov pointed out, most of our knowledge is obsolete and inaccurate, but what does matter is the fact WE do have it. Plus, we have access to their technology and databases. Dr. McCoy is presently going over Borg corpses to examine how their biotechnology works. Hopefully we can also form defences to prevent assimilation happening to us, and we can share it with Starfleet."

Looking around the sea of faces, Kirk was a little disappointed very few of his own senior officers had thought about it. " Hasn't it occurred to anyone here, that sooner or later the Borg will encounter something from the Federation; a probe, a sleeper ship from the past, a drifting starship damaged, or even a cube or sphere could be sent to the Alpha quadrant anyway. We need defences."

Sulu glanced around the room, and looked at the Captain. " What are we going to do about the sphere when we're finished?"

Kirk had already thought of that. " We're going to place tricobalt explosives in the power grid, and that's not all. I've already arranged for naquadah enhanced explosives to add a bit more punch. If we can find this ship, strip it down, download the computer, then somebody else could. But another Borg ship could turn up, find out we're here, then our cover is gone.  
" So far, we've survived by sticking to the shadows, only made contact with people via shuttlecraft because I was worried about how someone might decide to board Enterprise, capture her, and do to her what we're doing to the Borg sphere. Some races already know of us, but they don't know much about Enterprise because we've limited our contact of alien races because we don't have the resources to fight a long war. I've already explained this to you twice. We've made contact with traders, travellers, and several other races. We've done that. We're doing that, but we are also studying races and technologies, and what have we done? We have access to a powerful energy source which has cut down on our antimatter useage, developed an enhanced warp field, improved sensors by 78%.

" If we make contact with the Borg, then we have to be ready."

* * *

After the meeting, Kirk was called down to Engineering. Seeing Scotty standing next to what appeared to be a squat pipe with added pieces.

" Mr Scott, you called?"

Scotty turned round, but not before saying to his alien assistant Keenser, " Don't hang 'round ere, get some work done," he said before turning to the Captain. " Aye sir, I found this on the sphere. There are 13 others." Kirk frowned, wishing Scott would get to the point. " 13 what?"

Scotty grinned. " This, Jim," he said, using the captain's name freely, " is a transwarp coil."

* * *

Scotty pointed on the schematic of the sphere on the monitor, where key points were picked out by yellow highlighted circles. " In these sectors, along key lines of the ships geometry, are chambers where there transwarp coils are located. We've already found them, and the good news is there are three that still work, though one of 'em is almost burnt out. I've got one down in Engineering where I'm using the Borg database to set up an interface."

" What about these other coils?" McCoy asked. " You said only three were operational-"

Scotty nodded. " Aye, that's right, Doctor. When we found the database on the sphere, and what the coils looked like, I had my engineering staff go through the ship's sections carefully. We found all the coils, but only three were in good condition. The other ten were burnt out, possibly by the same electrokinetic storm which deactivated the sphere in the first place."

" How much have you already learnt?"

" Thanks to the database, we've a fair idea on how the transwarp technology works, Captain," Scotty replied. " The principle's very similar to the wormhole theory, except its an artificial subspace corridor that's projected infront of the ship."

Spock cocked his head. " It doesn't sound dissimilar to normal warp drive, the warp engines warp space to create a corridor close to normal space to travel faster than light."

Scotty nodded in agreement. " True, but don't forget Mr Spock, warp drive warps subspace close to normal space. The transwarp coils open a channel deep in subspace."

Kirk wasn't in the mood to get into a debate about subspace physics. " Alright!" He raised his hands impatiently. " Let's not get caught up on the physics, Mr Scott. Have you made any progress into adapting our technology to the coils?"

Scott's face went slack. It seemed what the captain said hadn't occurred to him. Kirk was in no mood to play mind games. " Is something wrong, Mr Scott?"

That shook Scotty out of his little daydream, and he hastily explained himself after a brief apology. " Sorry, sir, but it only just occurred to me that we've been trying to adapt their technology to our ship, but we've been unsuccessful. You've just given me an idea, we can instead reverse it, and adapt our technology to theirs. Can I-?"

Kirk nodded. " You can go, but keep me informed."

" Aye, sir," Scotty said as he left the room at a brisk run. Kirk turned to the others. " Mr Chekov, I want you to plot a course that takes us to the planets Uhura was sent to survey, and then a course that leads us away from Borg space. If Mr Scott can link those coils up, we can cut decades off our trip home."

The young officer nodded. " Aye, keptin." Kirk looked around, hoping for something meaningful to say, but he couldn't find anything. " Anything else? No? Dismissed. Not you, Mr Spock." Kirk waited until the others were gone before he turned to his first officer. " What do you think, Mr Spock?"

The Vulcan kept his back ramrod straight, hands clasped behind his back as he looked serenely back at the captain. " I think this is an opportunity. However, we shouldn't rush it."

Smiling wryly, Jim nodded. He'd almost expected his first officer, whose job it was indeed to advise caution. " I'll be honest, Spock, I was going to be cautious anyway." He looked down at his hands. " Take a message to Scotty. Tell him to connect two of the coils to the Enterprise, and we could keep the last one for study, and maybe even find a way of perfecting our own transwarp knowledge," then a thought occurred to him. " Also check with Scotty if we can somehow create a means to send messages back home. Even if our first experience through the transwarp conduits doesn't get us home, it would do the crew a world of good to know they can send messages to their loved ones."

Spock hid his human excitement behind his mask, and instead nodded at Jim. He had kept in close contact with his parents during his time at the academy, and the destruction of Vulcan had only served to bring his father, Sarek, the only parent he had left. He had no idea if his father was still alive or dead, and he missed his father's wisdom deeply.

He left the room to head down to engineering to deliver the message.

* * *

Captain's log; supplemental.

Mr Scott has successfully installed the Borg transwarp coils into the ships' systems. We are preparing for the first test as soon as the sphere is destroyed.

* * *

Kirk was standing next to Sulu's station as the timer counted down as the Enterprise moved away from the Borg sphere at half impulse. " Three...two...one...zero."

The explosives, placed in strategic points in the Borg sphere's power grid, laced with naquadah, exploded, tearing the Borg sphere into pieces. Watching the explosion subside, Kirk turned to Sulu with an order in his eyes. The helmsman didn't need to ask, he just worked his console, and said words he'd never expected to say; " Transwarp in five. Four. Three. Two...One!"

" Engage!" Kirk said.

Sulu grinned, and he pulled down the lever. On the screen Enterprise shot through space, into a whirling tunnel of bright blue.

* * *

Many hours later.

Captain's log.

After picking up the survey team, we stayed in the transwarp conduit for a further six hours before the coils gave out. One gave out before the other, but despite that there's been a morale boost that has seen the Enterprise catapulted beyond Borg space, now 40,000 light years have been shaved off our trip home.

On another note, Mr Scott has been given permission to investigate the potential for creating a new transwarp drive for the ship, as well as communications.

Things are looking up.

* * *

**Next Time - " Minefield."**


	5. Chapter 5 Minefield

**The Delta Arc. **

**Minefield. **

Enterprise left the warp tunnel it had been inside for the last three weeks, stopping at a new star system. It was on the Borg starcharts, but no survey had been made. Seated in the command chair in the middle of the bridge Captain James Kirk studied the viewscreen, his mind on the astrometric data scavenged from the Borg ship, but he couldn't help but wonder why the collective never bothered to maintain up to date surveys on their starcharts. Was it because it had been done, scavenged, that they understood it?

Kirk shook his head. His mind had dwelt on it, now he found he couldn't care less about what motives the collective had. All that mattered was this solar system had, according to the collective starmaps an advanced civilisation living on it. The problem was why the Borg hadn't assmilated them when they'd assimilated their way through this arm of the Milky way? A study in the database had made it clear it was a defence, but whether it could be adapted into Enterprise Kirk hoped so. It had only been a few weeks since the sphere had been salvaged and the transwarp coils had allowed them to reach here much closer to home.

The thought that the anti-Borg weapons and defences hadn't reached very far made Kirk grimace, though it wasn't their fault. The researchers had only just started their studies of Borg technology, and that was it. Everyone was contributing to the project, Kirk was pleased to note, but so far all they could do before practical reverse engineering was to study the database before they could begin their experiments. Kirk was also welcoming the prospect of private experimentation, but so far the only thing all the crew had agreed upon unanimously was that the Enterprise avoided the Borg altogether. Kirk wondered if it was even possible.

Sulu's voice broke the captain out of his reverie. " We're secure from warp, sir. Entering the sector."

Kirk nodded. " Good. Slow to one quarter impulse. If there is a race that can fight and defeat the Borg, they'll make short work of us."

" Aye, sir," Sulu replied hands working on his board whilst Spock checked sensor readings.

" Captain," he reported without turning to the command chair, " information from the Borg database on this region is sketchy and out of date, and information about this planet speaks of a race who were able to defeat the Borg ships with a variety of weapons. The database claim that over 145, 000 ships have been lost in this region."

" Any sign of debris, Mr Spock?" Kirk had a good view of the screen, and it was completely empty. There were no chunks of any of the alloys that the Borg used to construct their ships, no sign of anything. Just a simple solar system. A few planets, asteroids, moons, and a sun. Nothing special there. Kirk wasn't here to conduct a survey, he was more interested in what'd destroyed an entire fleet of Borg ships. 145,000? There should've been something there.

Spock had already checked. " No, sir. Not even hull fragments."

" How is that possible?" Kirk asked, turning his chair as he normally did when he spoke to Spock. " Stellar drift, perhaps?"

* * *

" Possibly, but it doesn't make sense," Spock replied. " There would also be some wreckage in the solar system, but there isn't any."

Kirk considered, and he rubbed his chin absently. " Spock, if we raised the shields to protect ourselves, do you think it would trigger some kind of weapon system?"

Spock considered it. " Possibly Captain, therefore we should be cautious."

Kirk nodded as his mind raced. One part of him wanted to raise shields, but the practical side told him that if there was a weapon system that could, as Borg ships had discovered. " Spock, if there is a weapon system here, and it destroys a Borg ship what do you believe it to be?"

Spock shook his head. " I don't have enough information to make a proper analysis at the present time, Jim, but considering the possibilities...I would estimate the Borg ships were destroyed by something that breaks matter apart."

Someone whistled. Kirk didn't say a word. He agreed wholeheartedly. " Doesn't sound weird. Our transporters break matter apart one end and reassemble it in a new location, and there are even holographic technologies that use matter-energy principles and forcefields...But I've never heard of one as a weapon before. Theoretically, yeah, but not one in real life." Kirk straightened in his chair, buoyed by the new possible threat. " Mr Sulu, take us in very, very slowly."

" Aye, sir." Sulu replied. He wasn't surprised Kirk would give such an order after the last one. Just the thought of matter/energy weapons were terrifying.

* * *

As the Enterprise edged deeper and deeper in the solar system, the crew learnt more about it. A typical solar system, one sun as per normal. One gas giant, seventeen planets with just the one capable of supporting life though the other worlds had atmospheres, one in particular was a toxic atmosphere choked with volcanic fumes.

At his station Spock was becoming more concerned as the ship travelled deeper into the solar system. Like his captain, Spock had been hoping to discover evidence there was in fact debris, but the closer that the Enterprise moved towards the planet the more that hope dwindled.

" Captain, there is no debris." Spock reported.

Kirk sighed. " Yes, I can see that. Time for a different tack," he decided, " Lieutenant Uhura, send a standard greeting."

" Aye, sir," Uhura said as she sent the message. She sent it, and waited for a response. No reply. She sent another one. " I'm sorry sir, I'm not getting any response."

Kirk was undeterred. " Open a channel."

" Channel is open."

Kirk stood up from his chair and paced, his favourite activity when speaking over a channel. " This is Captain James T. Kirk, of the starship Enterprise, representing the United Federation of Planets, from the other side of the galaxy. We have spent nearly a year in the Delta quadrant, and we learnt of you from a Borg ship whose database we managed to salvage. We would like to meet you. Please respond."

Silence.

Nothing.

" Repeat the message," Kirk ordered Uhura. The communications officer nodded, and resent the message. She frowned when there was no response. She sent it again. Same thing.

Giving up, she turned to the Captain. " No luck, sir. There's no response."

Kirk bit his lip. Their options were limited. A solar system listed in the Borg database, known for the destruction of close to 150,000 Borg ships. How? They had no idea. The not knowing was enough to worry Kirk. What also worried him was what awaited them when they made a landing on the planet. What if...?

" Is there even intelligent life on that planet, Spock?" Kirk asked.

Spock checked. He had to recheck it twice to be one hundred percent sure, but the reading was certain. " There's no life down there, Captain. There are indications of an advanced, industrial civilisation, but no life signs."

" What can you tell us about the civilisation Mr Spock?" Kirk walked over to Spocks' console to learn more about the situation. The half Vulcan officer was already collating the information.

" There are factories of a degree, Captain," Spock replied. " There is also signs that the planet is dead, drained dry."

This was new. " What do you mean?" Kirk said quietly. How could a planet be drained dry?

" The flora life on the planet is dead, petrified as far as scanners can determine, though I can't be certain without a proper analysis. There is still an atmosphere, but the rest of the planet is completely drained of energy," Spock reported when something caught his attention. " Wait, I've found something on the surface of the planet-"

There was a massive explosion.

* * *

Kirk winced as he felt his head spin in pain, and he closed his eyes in reflex when a droplet of blood dripped in his right eye. " Damage report."

No one seemed to hear the Captain, not that Kirk could blame them. He saw some of the bridge officers pick themselves up, some of them shaking their heads to clear themselves, smoke rising from steaming consoles and panels. The red light and the sirens made Kirk grit his teeth from the headache he was getting.

" Damage report!" Kirk shouted impatiently.

" Major hull damage, external explosion," the android officer on the bridge replied. " Port side saucer section."

Kirk went around the bridge, helping some of the more stunned bridge officers get to their feet, and also check the workstations.

* * *

Fortunately Sickbay wasn't idle. In the aftermath of the explosion, the medical staff had been preparing to send medical teams all over the ship, issuing medikits to trained professionals when the casualties crawled in. McCoy groaned as more and more crew members were brought into the sickbay, most of them sporting different injuries both seriously life threatening and superficial. He grabbed his medical tricorder, and started to check them off.

" Broken leg, second degree plasma burns...,"he grunted, looking sympathetically down at the young woman before he barked orders to one of the orderlies. " Treat her with the dermaline gel, and use the knitter."

" Yes, doctor." The young medic bent down to his work allowing McCoy to move on to the next one.

* * *

Order on the bridge had been regained, though some of the workstations were unworkable and flickering uncontrollably, though thankfully they were still more or less in one piece. A testament to Federation technology.

Kirk leaned over the helm and navigation stations. " Back us away from the planet, maximum impulse."

Sulu didn't need to be told twice. " Moving off."

Kirk clamped a hand to his forehead, then he looked down at his fingers. He groaned when he saw the blood come away, but it didn't feel serious. He wasn't becoming delirious or sluggish. He'll be fine. " Full stop."

Sulu's hands worked to comply. " Full stop, sir."

" Scott to bridge." At the sound of the chief engineer's voice, Kirk smiled. Thank god for Scotty. He pressed the intercom. " Mr Scott, how's it looking down there?"

But Scotty wasn't in the mood for banter. His report was tense and terse. " Not good. Whatever that explosion was it's ripped into the EPS conduits in the saucer section. We've switched to emergency power and the naquadah generators."

" Good," Kirk replied. " How's the warp core?"

The sound of Scotty sighing over the com line almost brought everyone on the bridge up short until they realised it was a sigh of relief. " That's the beauty. It hasna been damaged, sir."

Kirk sighed himself in relief. " Scotty," he began, hunching over the command chair. " There was an external explosion outside on the port side of the saucer section. Get a damage control detail prepped and ready. Don't take a shuttle, that might be damaged. Go with them. Miss Uhura will join you to check on the crew to make sure we didn't lose anyone."

Uhura swiveled round in her chair to look her captain in the eye as Scotty replied, " Aye, sir."

Kirk looked at Uhura. " Get going. Your job is to make sure we didn't lose anyone, and I want a senior officer down there to keep things going."

As a senior officer, Uhura knew it was a job that needed doing, but she felt she could do more good on the bridge. " Sir, you might need me for the communications-" She was stopped when Kirk held up his hand, and she saw the look on his face. The Captain was clearly not in the mood to be pushed or his decisions questioned. " I need Mr Spock up here for scientific analyis, and I need Chekov and Sulu here for their roles. Bones probably has his hands full in sickbay, and Scotty'll meet you. You don't have anything to do. There is no life on that planet to speak of, and if I'm wrong you can tear strips off me, but right now I need you to do this simple job. Now get going!"

Shocked by the anger she could hear bubbling under the captain's tone, Uhura nodded her head and hurried out, grabbing a tricorder from a nearby cabinet. Never in all the time had she known him had Uhura heard Kirk so angry, though she shouldn't have been surprised. He had a lot on his mind right now and he didn't need Kirk watched her go, a little ashamed for the way he'd spoken to her, but he didn't need people questioning his command decisions at a time like this.

Putting Uhura's feelings from her mind, he went over to Spock, but not before there was a thump sound and a screeching sound like metal was being scraped over the hull.

" What the hell-?" Kirk whispered as it came to and end.

Spock was at once checking his controls feverishly. " It was a metallic object, and judging from the sound it made as it impacted on the hull, I would say it was a spherical object roughly two and a half metres in diameter."

But Kirk didn't care about that, not when he had another concern. " Never mind that. What I want to know is where it came from? Our sensors are online, right?"

" Yes, sir. I believe the object was cloaked."

Kirk sighed. " Shit."

The Federation had encountered cloaking technology before. Romulan ships and mines contained cloaking devices, and other notable examples included the Breen and the Suliban, and recently their unpleasant encounter with the Voth. Cloaking devices allowed a selective bending of light, though the power cost was enormous, and it gave others a tactical strength because cloaked vessels could not fire invisible. The Voth cloaking technology worked on a different principle, though considering their million year existence in the region it wasn't much of a shock to know their cloaking technology was more advanced. By comparison the cloaks used by Romulan and Suliban, were nothing more than thin sheets of light reflective materials.

Since their discovery, Starfleet officers had been faced with tactical issues with cloaking devices; how to detect them. How to fight them. And how to disable or see through them. Fortunately, Enterprise had a secret weapon. After Nero's attack on the Kelvin, there had been a buildup of tension with the Romulan empire, and Starfleet command had put a research team together. Their job was to discover means of fighting against cloaked enemies, and luckily Jonathan Archer's Enterprise had brought back a Suliban cell ship. With that they had a rough foundation of study, but a commando team went out into Romulan space, and captured a Bird of prey, and brought it back to be taken apart and researched.

Enterprise had received, like all Starfleet ships, a complete overhaul that included scanners to look through the different cloaking frequencies with an antiproton scan.

" Activate the antiproton scanner," Kirk ordered.

" Scanner online, putting results on the viewer." Spock and Kirk turned to the viewscreen. The image colouring changed from normal to a green aurora, and perfect spheres appeared where there were none before.

Kirk's eyes became darker, his mouth became grim. " A minefield," he whispered. " Switch to all round vision. How big is this field?"

The screen circling around them gave them an idea that only the planet itself was surrounded, and luckily Enterprise wasn't in that deep. That made everyone breath easily. " Switch to saucer cameras," Kirk ordered. " Port side. Let's see how much damage that thing caused."

The view changed, showing Enterprise's saucer section. Kirk's face hardened when he saw that a burnt out section of the hull had been destroyed, leaving mangled pieces and twisted support struts instead of an immaculately curved disc.

Kirk turned to the crew. " Please tell me we didn't lose anyone."

At that moment Uhura and Scotty came onto the bridge. Kirk studied their faces; Uhura was grim, though not as grim as Scotty. " We did a head count," she told the captain, " we didn't lose anyone, fortunately, though we almost did. A few got caught in a bulkhead section, and they're waiting for

rescue, but that's about all. A few plasma burns, concussions...Leonard's dealing with it."

Kirk nodded in relief before turning to look at Scotty. " We've seen the damage from here," he tilted his head at the screen, " but I'd like to hear from our chief engineer what the extent of the damage is."

Scotty's eyes flickered over to the screen, and his face soured noticeably. " Aye, well. That screen isna tellin' all the facts. The explosion, oh wait, a mine," Scotty's eyes glazed over as a mine drifted over the hull. " Aye, a mine."

" Mr Scott, please continue with your report."

Scotty's eyes flicked back to Kirk, abashed. " Sorry, sir. But the mine ruptured some EPS conduits, and caused a feedback into the power grid. Lucky it didnae damage the warp core."

Kirk looked away. " How long will it take to repair?"

" We haven't even properly verified the damage, sir. We need to get away from this place. Quick. Only then we can properly repair the damage without being blown up."

" Or exposed to the vacuum of space," Kirk kept his eyes on the screen. A thought was nagging him, but what was it? Then it occurred to him. " An explosion that big would send out a lot of debris, right? Where is it?"

" It's probably drifted off, Captain."

The thought was coming out...

" Scan the system. Locate that wreckage." Kirk ordered with a voice that stopped the possibility of anyone questioning his order. Spock found it quickly. " It's in this system, and it's being carried to the planet in the centre of the minefield."

" Let's see it." Kirk ordered.

" Strange. The gravity readings around the wreckage are increasing. The mines are pulling the wreckage to the planet, and...wait, something is happening."

As the crew watched, a small group of the mines decloaked, and started surrounding the wreckage, held in the centre by some kind of gravitational force. The mines glowed purple, both in real colour and cloak colour. Small streams of silver started to criss-cross the wreckage sphere, and hold it secure. When it was finished, the hull piece of the Enterprise was catapulted to the planet below.

" That's it," Sulu whispered. " That's why there's no wreckage in the system. The mines latch themselves to the hulls of a ship, explode, and the pieces are taken down to the planet. Somehow the mines manipulate the local gravity of the system to move the wreckage. Perfect design."

Kirk nodded. " You got it, Mr Sulu. What we've just seen...Suppose you were fighting the Borg. Don't you think blowing chunks of the ships out, and sending them to the planet for study, and they could also recycle the materials into whatever weapons they needed. Poetic justice."

" Vell, ze Borg didn't destroy ve planet, Ketpin," Chekov replied. " Vhey leave perfectly habitable planets behind, not husks."

Kirk sat down in his chair. " Yeah. Maybe something happened to them, but the minefield's still there."

Scotty had gone over to the engineering console before checking with the Science station. " They're gravity mines, Captain. They're attracted to large masses, and explode with tricobalt explosives."

Kirk hmmed grimly, kicking himself mentally for falling for this simple and yet unknown trap. " And the Borg, not bothering to investigate the potential issues, would continue sending more and more cubes to this system, and more and more cubes will be destroyed. God knows when the last cube was here." Kirk sat in his chair silently, his mind going over plans. " Put Tactical on the screen. Use the antiproton scanners to scan the reaches of the field."

" Aye, sir," Sulu replied. The Tactical image appeared. It showed the spherical mass of the planet, and the little dots highlighted in green that were the mines. They were drifting almost aimlessly around the planet, but Kirk knew they were anything but aimless. The good news was the mines weren't located throughout the solar system, just around the three moons orbiting the planet.

A blue dot represented Enterprise. Using a control on his chair, Kirk was able to manipulate the view into a 3D image, allowing for the spheres to become more numerous. " Damn, these people really knew what they were doing," Kirk whispered. " Mr Sulu, it's time to test your piloting skills. Using this data, I want you to plot a course that takes us away from the planet."

Sulu nodded. Surprisingly Spock stood up to protest. " Captain, I have just detected a building on the surface of the planet. And now we're closer, I can say for sure the planet is dead."

Kirk sighed. " Spock, we don't have time to- wait, did you say the planet was dead?"

" Jim, you don't understand." Spock interrupted, something that shut Kirk up. " That building has a totally different technology than the rest of the planet. There's also no life down there, the whole planet is dead."

Kirk looked thoughtfully at Spock before he turned to Scotty. " Mr Scott, can you transwarp beaming beacons work through a minefield?"

Scotty nodded. " Aye, sir."

Kirk sighed again. " Okay, Mr Spock. Assemble a minimal landing party. Check that place out whilst Mr Sulu guides Enterprise out of the minefield. Mr Sulu, based on your calculations, how long will it take us to leave the field to give Mr Spock time?"

Sulu checked. " Three hours, sir." He said to Spock.

Kirk and Spock shared a look. " Go."

* * *

Scotty held out a box to each member of the away team. " Each of these are beacons, so you can walk as far as ye like, but we can still pick up your signatures."

Spock took his from the box. The beacon was a rectangular piece of metallo-plastic with a standard Starfleet computer interface.

" They'll prime as soon as ye transport down to the planet," Scott continued.

Spock nodded. " Thank you, Mr Scott."

" Good luck down there, sir." Scott replied as the team as they stepped onto the transporter pad. As soon as they were ready, Spock looked at the team to make sure they were ready. They looked back resolutely.

He nodded to the transporter chief. " Energise."

* * *

The golden swirls of the transport landed the team on the planet, and Spock took a deep breath so he could analyse the air. In some ways the planet reminded him of Vulcan; an arid world, rich, hot atmosphere. Or it should've been. The air was stale, and Spock felt his momentary homesickness to be...disconcerting. Despite New Vulcan's founding, and his relationship with Nyota, which was becoming more and more...intimate, Spock still missed his old homeworld.

Spock came out of his thoughts when he dimly noticed the looks of concern from the rest of the landing party, and the crew went off. They were in the middle of a city. Or what had once been a city. The buildings were made of concrete, but it looked as eroded as the Great Pyramids on Earth. What looked like a park with trees was now a dried ruin with dead trees.

" Mr Spock." One of the party called from inside one of the buildings. Spock turned and went inside. " What is it?" He asked the officer.

The officer swallowed. " You'd better see for yourself." He pointed around the darkened room. Spock concentrated hard on his vision. The room he was in had once been a schoolroom, and there were dusty desks with equally dusty computers. Spock checked his tricorder. These computers hadn't seen use in over a year.

But the horrifying thing were the bodies of children, and one adult, possibly the teacher. Each body was a lifeless hush. Spock bent down carefully, and lifted his tricorder to scan the bodies. " The binding energy of organic compounds in their flesh is gone," he whispered in disbelief.

The officer shook his head at the news of this horrific sight. " What could do such a thing?"

Spock turned, and he ignored the question suddenly when a new sight caught his attention. " Look, behind you. It appears they tried to barricade themselves against...whatever did this."

The officer swallowed, and Spock was fascinated by the emotions playing on the officers' face. The Vulcan could see he was on the verge of an emotional breakdown, and so the science officer led him out of the room to his relief. And Spock's too.

Outside they found someone waiting for them, a Lieutenant Ashton. A security officer.

Ashton inclined her head in an easterly direction. " The rest of the party found some kind of complex over there, sir. It looks newer than anything here, and it doesn't seem to conform with anything here, architecturally speaking."

" Why was I not informed, Lieutenant?" Spock asked her calmly.

The officer flushed. " I'm sorry, sir, but I was only just aware you were inside."

Spock nodded in understanding. " Very well."

With Ashton, the two science officers quickly found the complex. Ashton was right. The people on this planet seemed to favour buildings with concrete, or metallic domes. This complex appeared to resemble a pyramid, and jutting out of it were two great antenna. They resembled horns.

Spock lifted his tricorder. " This structure has been here for three years now, and it appears those antenna were once used to transmit energy into space."

" What for?"

Spock couldn't answer the question, instead he asked one himself. " Are the others inside?"

Ashton knew that much. " Yes. I think so, sir."

Spock quirked a brow, and he took out his communicator, and checked with the science party. They were inside. Spock sent the flustered Ashton a look, and went inside followed by the others.

Ashton looked at the other science officer. " Great. My first landing detail, and I mess it up."

" Ah, you didn't. You've just got to learn, that's all."

The corridors of the complex were winding, twisting, and the metal was tarnished and warped. Spock checked his tricorder, and picked up two of the party via their bioreadings, not far from where they were. Spock quietly led the way to them, and they found themselves inside a room where there were what looked like stasis booths, but instead of bodies there were more husks.

" Ensign Lindelof," Spock said, " what've you found?"

The ensign took a deep breath to stop herself from losing it at the sight of the dried up bodies. " They're definitely humanoid, but they've been dead for at least two."

" Yes," Spock agreed. " We saw some of the remains in another building. Exactly the same condition."

Lindelof nodded, and Spock added. " Where are the others?"

" They went deeper into the complex," Linfelof replied, " they've already called in, said they'd found something like a transporter room."

Spock frowned, but Ashton was the one who voiced their puzzlement. " A transporter? How?"

Lindelof shook her head, making her light brown hair swing from its ponytail. " It's directional, for a start. They go through the antennae on the roof," she pointed upwards, " But there's no sign of a transporter pad, or any of the usual components."

Spock considered. " Very well, we shall go there."

Lindelof nodded in agreement, then she remembered something. " Oh, sir. We also found some form of sphere in the centre of the complex, and we've sent it to the Enterprise for study and analysis."

" Without consulting me?" Spock quirked a brow.

Now nervous, Lindelof swallowed, " You were elsewhere, sir. We just used our initiative."

Spock could forgive that, and besides the crew's standing orders were to procure alien technology, and whilst he understood that, he didn't like not being informed until the last minute of any new development. " Very well, but in future I wish to remain informed of every act on an away mission. It may become crucial."

Lindelof bowed her head. " Aye, sir," she said as Spock led the way to where the other lifesigns were registered. It was a good thing they had the tricorders with their lifesign detectors, otherwise they'd have gotten lost. It was very dark in the corridors, and they looked badly maintained for a place that had stood empty for the past three years or so.

As they walked Spock cast his mind on what they'd learnt so far. A field of mines that exploded whenever a ship of a certain size approached the planet, used the local gravity to move the wreckage into orbit of the planet where mines of a different function worked to wrap the wreckage up like a parcel, and then send the pieces of the ships down to the planet where they would be studied in greater detail before being recycled into whatever was needed. Spock had to admit it was a good way to make better use of the Borg hardware, and it certainly explained why this civilisation lasted longer than most did.

But what had happened? So far the only signs were the husks of the bodies of the people here, dried up and wasted. Who or what had killed them? It certainly wasn't the Borg, they didn't waste anything. Who had built this complex? Why did Lindelof state clearly the other members of the landing party believed this building to be some form of transporter?

Finally they heard voices up ahead, and when they reached another room, this one with banks of old equipment that looked older than it was, Spock saw why they believed this place was a transporter room of some description.

There was an open end of the room, with different slots with an indentation in the ground and ceiling. From the curvature in each, Spock believed they held spherical objects, possibly transporter capsules. Such things were not unknown; transporter technology had its dangers, and it was often considered wise for space faring races to develop a kind of transporter bathyscaphe in harsh conditions to maintain the welfare of the party, but somehow Spock didn't believe this was the case.

For a start there were too many of the indentations. Over 20 he could count.

Lieutenant Cooper saw Spock look at the indentations. " There's another few rooms with those, but this is the main room. The control room by the looks of it, all the others have basic controls."

Spock nodded. " What about the sphere you transported to the Enterprise?"

" It was in a cavity in the centre, right underneath the horn antennae," Cooper replied, " it was wired into it like a guidance system, and the interior had inside it a massive couch to hold a massive body. Whoever came here, they were big. But the sphere's instrumentation was mostly navigational in appearance, like it was a kind of triangulation system. We should learn more when Engineering finds the time to examine it."

Spock cocked his head. " I look forward to reading their report."

The landing party were on the planet for a further hour before they transported back to the Enterprise.

* * *

Hikaru Sulu had spent his entire life honing and refining his piloting abilities, and dodging minefields was one thing he tried very hard to keep up with, though like all pilots he hated mines in space. So many things to keep track of; angle of course, speed calculations, and worst of all the positions of the mines. The problem with mines in space was the fact they were constantly on the move, and the only things holding them so close to this planet was their thrusters and the gravity of the planet itself.

Sulu had called them perfect, but steering through them was like playing Russian roulette, though he wasn't going to say that to Pavel sitting next to him. Lord knows he'd get a massive lecture about ' Russian-this' and ' Russian - that.' Besides he'd lose his concentration.

To help him, Kirk had quietly asked for the bridge to be cleared of everyone except the most important duties. Scotty was seated at the science station, and transferred Engineering to the station, and Uhura was on her station with Pavel on his.

Sulu blinked as he made a minute course correction, using his hands to skillfully control the attitude of the Enterprise as she slowly twisted and turned under his hands to edge out of the minefield. There had been a few times when he'd felt his breath hitch, or the sensation of his stomach wanting to be sick but not finding the time.

He also blocked out the sounds of the rest of the bridge. Kirk was silent, his eyes on the back of his best pilot, and keeping his own breathing to a minimum.

Uhura came over to Kirk, and whispered, " Spock and the landing party have beamed onboard."

Kirk tilted his head up to her. " Very good," he whispered back, " tell him if he's coming up here, he'd better be quiet because Sulu needs to concentrate on getting us out of the minefield. We can't risk another explosion."

Uhura nodded back, and went to her post to relay the message. A few minutes later Spock walked out of the turbolift quietly, and went over to his Captain with a PADD in hand. Kirk looked at the PADD and back at the Vulcan. He gestured with his head for Spock to come with him into the ready room. As soon as the two men entered the ready room, Kirk activated the silencer so then any loud voices could not be overheard by any of the crew.

" What did you find?" Kirk asked.

" The planet's dead, completely dead, like our sensor scans indicated," Spock replied. " According to observations and personal scans, I would estimate the planet died over a 3-4 year period."

Kirk frowned, wondering who could've done this. He'd already heard about the spherical capsule that had been found in the complex, but he wanted to learn more about what Spock thought.

" Another species arrived here," Spock summarised, " and they must have been welcomed by the population, otherwise why there be people in their complex?"

" They may have been dragged into that same complex against their will," Kirk pointed out. " The complex." Kirk sighed and rested his heads in his hands. " Okay, that complex...," he stood up from his chair, and walked over to Spock. " They obviously built it with the full knowledge of the people of that planet, and their blessing. The population didn't know what was happening until it was too late."

Spock ran the Captain's words through his head, and couldn't fault him for the logical reasoning. He'd reached the same conclusion himself.

Kirk carried on, " They obviously didn't use spacecraft of the kind we're familiar with. They must have used some kind of long range transporter capsules, capable of moving through space at long distances, and they make peaceful contact. The aliens must have lied to them, maybe even promised them something. A way to defeat and defend themselves against the Borg?"

" This is hypothetical, Jim," Spock replied.

Kirk had to agree with Spock, but it made sense. He couldn't see any other way. He let out a sigh. " There's nothing we can do anyway. That race is gone, vanished, and they left behind a planet with a still active minefield."

" What are we going to do with the mines Jim?"

Kirk's answer was immediate. " Now we know there's no one living down on the planet, and there hasn't been a living soul in this system for the last few years, we can't allow a minefield to be a hazard to navigation. I want you to work with Mr Chekov to find a way to destroy the mines all at once when we're clear of the field."

Spock nodded. " Aye, sir," he replied recognising the dismissal. Kirk stopped him. " Leave your report, Mr Spock. I want to go over it."

Spock left the PADD with Kirk.

* * *

Sulu sighed, and all the tension in his body left him completely as they cleared the last mines. He nodded at Spock with relief, and all the bridge crew sighed when the ship was out.

Spock looked at Chekov. The young navigator nodded back at him in readiness. The science officer informed the Captain they were clear of the field. Spock turned to Sulu. " Full stop, Mr Sulu."

" Full stop, are," Sulu replied.

Kirk walked out of the ready room. " Is the beam ready Mr Spock?"

" It's ready, Captain," Spock replied.

" Fire when ready," Kirk ordered, moving to take his chair.

Spock moved to the navigator post. " Mr Chekov, fire at your discretion."

" Aye, sir." Chekov pressed a control. On the viewer the crew watched as a beam of gravitons modified into the aft phasers shot towards the minefield. It hit several of them, which started a chain reaction. Within seconds the entire minefield had been destroyed.

Kirk was silent for a few moments before he issued his next command to the helm. As I understand it, Mr Sulu, there's a solar system only a days travel at warp two? According to the long range scans, the system has plenty of raw ores we can use to shore up the damage."

Sulu nodded. " Aye, sir. With our inertial dampeners at maximum and structural integrity reinforced with the temporary braces Scotty put into place, we should make it there without worrying about the damage to the saucer section. Scotty's already cleared it."

Kirk leaned back in his chair. " Set a course, but we'll go to Warp one to be on the safe side."

Sulu swiveled back in his chair to program the course. When he leaned back, head twisted to receive the Captain's next order, Kirk said, " Engage."

* * *

Space around the Enterprise vibrated as the warp nacelles started to warp space. Suddenly in a flash, Enterprise shot towards her new destination.

* * *

**Next time - Missing - Year Two. **

**The bit with the complex and the sphere with have a role to play in the Third slot of year 2.**


	6. Chapter 6 Missing

**Before I begin this chapter I would like to say thank you to Sajuuk for the kind review and ideas that was posted. **

**The Delta Arc. **

The quarters were dark, but James Kirk didn't notice nor did he care. Light or dark, it meant nothing to him. He'd been sitting in the same position for the last few hours, if anyone had walked in on him they would've wondered if he was a plastic mannequin that resembled the Enterprise captain until they saw closely the rise and fall of his chest and the subtle sound of breathing from his nostrils.

Though his body was still, his mind was anything but. Christopher Pike and several other tutors at Starfleet academy had on many occasions commented on Kirk's natural intellectual prowess; Kirk only needed a brief time to assimilate information before committing it to his memory, and aside from a few exceptions Kirk hadn't needed to study. Sometimes, when he'd been bored, Kirk had simply failed a subject simply because he hadn't seen the point of it, though there was a difference between disinterest and simple indifference to how relevant the subject could be.

The darkness of his quarters didn't bother Kirk; he was actually relaxed, and the lack of stimuli gave him the privacy he needed. Besides that there were few people on the ship as it was to actually intrude so he didn't need to worry about anybody disturbing him. Kirk sighed, weight settling on his shoulders as the thought that had circled round and round in his head like a carousel for the past three hours came back. His ears tuned into the sounds of the Enterprise. From his position and the quiet of the room, he could hear the thrum of the deck plates as the impulse engines worked in tandem with the thrusters and the warp drive to push the ship through space, he could hear the life support system and the recycling of carbon dioxide as fresh air was pumped in to replace it.

Kirk closed his eyes as he listened deeply. There had been times in the past year since the Enterprise was stranded in the Delta Quadrant and the crew had been cut off from Starfleet and the Federation where Kirk had sat here, in the dark, with his doors closed off, and he just listened as his beloved ship crossed space on its way home. Before Enterprise had left Earth, he'd had two meetings; one with Chris Pike and the second with Old Spock who had been the first he'd spoken too.

The thought of Old Spock and his actions, though unintentional, had created the reality they were in now made Jim a bit sick. The knowledge that the life he was living had been paralleled by somebody else, someone who had lived a different life often made Kirk puke. He hated the idea of somebody looking over his shoulder, shaking his head in disapproval. That was how Kirk viewed his relationship with the old Vulcan and how he viewed his other self, the one Old Spock had served with, and it also annoyed him deeply. He couldn't help but feel like his life was on display. Was this going to happen in another 130 odd years from now, was his Spock, older and wiser and shaped by his experiences in Starfleet and the diplomatic corps of the Federation going to be forced to travel back into the past, chasing a mad-something? After his experiences with the Romulans, Kirk couldn't imagine his first officer truly helping the Romulans on any diplomatic service, and the relations between the Romulans and the Federation had been strained.

The meeting with Old Spock had been something. The Vulcan had simply told him ' Good Luck,' before he'd left. That was it. Kirk hadn't bothered to ask the Vulcan what was going to happen on the five year mission Starfleet had sent them on, and he hadn't wanted to know. Though the mind meld had been brief and showed certain images and information relating to the Nero crisis, Kirk had learnt only a ghost amount of information that had seeped through the gaps of the meld. Kirk had seen only vague images of Spocks' past, and the vagueness of the images had left a sour taste in his mouth.

Proof positive that the older Spock was looking over his shoulder.

The only good thing about the meld was that Enterprise never got lost in the Delta quadrant, meaning Kirk could make his own decisions and choices without worrying about what some other version of him felt about it. Kirk tried to keep his thoughts and feelings about the other Kirk out of his mind, but sometimes...Sometimes he wondered if the other Jim was proud of him and what he'd learnt so far.

Oh, Kirk was grateful for Old Spock's help and advice in how to wrestle command of the Enterprise from his own Spock, but in the aftermath Kirk had wondered whether or not he deserved the Enterprise. To some extent, he still did, and he used that indecisiveness to his advantage by not being a cocky bastard like he had in the academy, though he could feel that side of his nature fading away. The meeting with Pike, who'd used his Admiral's rank to get onto the Enterprise before the ship had left orbit and smuggled himself inside the Captain's quarters, had given him the opportunity to clear his conscience. Pike had listened as Kirk told his version of the story Old Spock had given on his own arrival to Earth. Those in the know - Starfleet flag officers and Federation officials to the President were the only ones who knew the truth about Nero and his past met with the Old Spock, and listened as the old Vulcan had laid down the facts of what had happened. The unprovoked attack on the Kelvin, the destruction of Vulcan, the destruction of 47 Klingon vessels and the destruction of Rura Penthe, and the attempted destruction of Earth...had been caused by another reality. The knowledge of time travel and alternate realities had shocked the Federation to the core.

Pike had spoken to the old Vulcan himself, and he'd confided in Kirk how...uneasy he'd felt afterwards, as if the Vulcan had made his own judgements on him, and the life he hadn't lived and never would in the future. Kirk had commented that the old Vulcan seemed to judge everything in the reality he was in now, conveniently forgetting the already known fact that alternate realities were the same and yet different in some manner. It wasn't their fault if their world was different, it was how things worked. Pike had agreed with him.

After that little discussion, Pike had promised to keep an eye on Old Spock. He'd also listened as Kirk had confided in him about how Old Spock had urged - or was it manipulate him? - into taking the Enterprise away from their Spock's command. Pike had stopped him. Yes, he'd said, Spock had been in command, but like Old Spock had said he was compromised by the destruction of his homeworld, the loss of his so many of his race, the knowledge his race was now on the verge of extinction thanks to Nero's black hole weapon, which he'd stolen from Old Spock, but the pain his human mother had been murdered so brutally was driving Spock to play it safe. Pike told Kirk that if he hadn't have gone to Nero's ship, and he'd had the meeting where Nero's past had revealed the knowledge of time travel, and the realisation Earth was next would've made him disobey orders and pursue the insane Romulan instead of joining the rest of the fleet. Spock was a by the book officer, he would obey orders even if they ordered him to jump off a cliff. Kirk liked Spock, but he held in frustration at times by the man's inability to see outside the box.

In the end Pike had said to him that Kirk had made Spock see the illogic of joining the fleet, but the Vulcans' rule abiding approach to life hadn't deserted him. Kirk had expected during the time Spock to fight him over every decision, but the Vulcan hadn't even if he had relinquished command to someone he'd humiliated in front of hundreds of cadets and admirals, but he hadn't. He'd adapted quickly to Kirk's command, for which Kirk had been grateful for, but what about afterwards? Kirk had been delighted when Spock had boarded the Enterprise on the first day, he'd been worried about the Vulcan. The destruction of his world could've made the Vulcan leave, and the logical conclusion to that would make him travel to the new Vulcan colony to help rebuild the species. That's what any human would do. Kirk had been happy when Spock had offered his first officer application but he'd been a little bit...troubled by his willingness. He'd later spoken to the Vulcan and learnt he'd had an encounter with his Older self. Kirk had asked aloud if the old Vulcan was being a little bit manipulative.

Kirk wondered how Pike would react if he was in Kirk's shoes about now.

Rising stiffly, he went over to a cabinet on the wall and opened it to reveal a few bottles of alcohol and water. Kirk studied them. He was tempted just to get drunk, like he had in the good old days. No, he was different man but the old urges to sometimes get pissed remained. In this case the temptation was high, but Kirk wasn't going to give into the urge. His crew, or what was left of it, needed him to be strong, not pissed like a teenager.

Taking two bottles of water from the shelf, Kirk went back to the couch close to the viewport, and poured a large amount of the liquid into a glass. The taste and sensation of water trickling down his throat made him aware of how much time had passed; his throat was parched, and he hadn't realised he'd been thirsty. As he drank, Kirk came to a decision.

" Computer, begin Captain's personal log," he said quietly.

The computer chirped. " Working. Begin when ready."

Kirk was quiet as he assembled his thoughts. " Captain's personal log. The beginning of the New year has made us aware of how much can happen in only a few brief months, but it brings with it the reality of us being in the Delta Quadrant, looking for a new way of getting home. The Borg transwarp conduit has shortened our journey, and in the months that followed our hop through Borg space and a little bit beyond morale has been quite high. Members of the crew have petitioned me to open competitions into music and things like literature and poetry, and I have. I want my crew to believe I want them to make the best of a shitty situation. I've also offered the beginning of an adult science fair to make people use their creativity." Kirk paused as he wondered if he should edit the word ' shitty' from the log, then decided not too. The log was personal, and anyone who studied the situation in which the log was being recorded might actually guess why he was saying words like that. Shaking his head, he carried on, " Our journey home has been helped by meeting other spacefaring races, but because of how little we have and how precarious our situation is, I have refused diplomatic ambassadors to meet me on the Enterprise. This isn't because I want to meet aliens, it's because I don't want my ship exposed to threats.

" Now...," Kirk sighed as he refocused his mind. " My crew are missing. It has been two days, and Enterprise is searching the sector for any leads on our missing crew..."

* * *

**_Two days ago..._**

* * *

Kirk sat with Sulu as they guided the runabout back to Enterprise. Something was niggling at the back of his mind, some sense something was wrong, but Kirk couldn't pin it down. After five days of meeting the Mal confederation for a starchart of the region with points marked on it for minerals that could prove valuable to Enterprise's journey.

The crew had learnt of the confederation on their way to this sector, and they'd realised that the best way of travelling through a section of the Delta quadrant hundreds of light years across that it would take a whole year to cross needed their awareness, so Kirk had sent messages to the them asking for a diplomatic solution. They'd agreed and asked for a meeting, on condition the command staff themselves attended the meeting. With no choice although it wasn't exactly procedure, they'd agreed. The captain, Spock, Sulu, Bones, Scotty, Uhura, and two security guards for escort had left, Kirk had left Pavel Chekov in command to remind the crew that they were doing it to show them how important it was that the command crew were working with them to get home safely. Chekov had taken command nervously but bravely, and Kirk had found a nice solar system only a few days away within communications range to give the crew something meaningful to do whilst the command staff made the negotiations. The Mal confederation had accepted them gracefully, not commenting about Chekov though it was possible and probable they weren't aware there was a missing member of the command crew.

They'd expected the negotiations to be slow and difficult, but they hadn't. The negotiations had gone smoothly, everything had been agreeable and reasonable. The Mal confederation had no problem with Enterprise passing through their space. Kirk had also learnt that it was a tradition of the Mal to have the command staff of any ship passing through their region to speak to them as a formality, with that cleared Kirk was no longer suspicious or worried about any form of treachery.

So why was Kirk worried?

His consternation didn't go unnoticed by Sulu. " Everything alright, sir?"

Kirk sighed and wondered if he should tell Sulu what was bugging him. He decided he should otherwise he'd let it eat him from the inside out, and besides that he'd learnt to trust the crew with everything. " I dunno. It's just now we're in space again and heading back to the ship, I've been feeling uneasy. It's like a sense of danger..."

Humans had been feeling that for thousands of years, Sulu knew that, but why was Kirk feeling it now? He knew there wasn't any point of asking the captain why he was feeling it, there wasn't any point.

" When did you start feeling this way?" Sulu asked.

Kirk opened his mouth to speak but he was interrupted by McCoy. " Feeling? You feeling okay, Jim?" McCoy didn't wait for an answer as he took out his sensor wand to scan him. Shooting a glare at a now wilting Sulu, Kirk pushed the wand away with a sigh. " It's okay Bones, I'm fine. It's just, I've got a horrible feeling something's wrong."

McCoy scoffed. " 'Course there's something wrong, we're at warp in space, and you know how space is dangerous."

" Didn't stop you from joining Starfleet," Kirk shot back, instantly regretting it, but he had a point. Starfleet didn't just work in space, there were numerous planetary positions McCoy could've joined if he'd wanted, but he'd joined a starship crew. He carried on quickly before Bones could be hurt by the reminder of the push to join Starfleet. " But since we left the Mal, I've had the thought something's wrong, and as we're moving closer to Enterprise it's been getting worse."

Sulu checked his instruments. " Well, we're going to find out why in a moment sir. We're dropping out of warp at the prearranged co-ordinates of Enterprise."

Kirk straightened. " Good."

There was a flash of light as the runabout dropped out of warp. The feeling of unease Kirk had felt intensified when they saw the Enterprise waiting for them. Bones chuckled. " Dunno what that feeling was, Jim, but the Enterprise is safe."

" No," Kirk replied. " It's still there. It got worse when we dropped out of warp." Kirk frowned as he studied his ship. The Enterprise seemed alright and she wasn't damaged, and if he wasn't feeling uneasy Kirk would've been okay, but it wasn't the case now. He called Uhura into the bridge.

" Open a channel to the ship," he ordered.

Uhura did as she was told, but there was no reply. Frowning, she tried again. " Sir, I'm not getting anything."

Anger burned Kirk's chest. " Mr Spock, scan for lifesigns on the ship." Now they were back and not hearing anything from their ship, Kirk's bad feeling was becoming more tangible.

After hearing there was no response from the hails, a mystery in itself for Ensign Chekov wouldn't just simply refuse to communicate, Spock slid into the science station and scanned. The results made him hesitate because he couldn't believe it.

" There is no life sign on the Enterprise, Jim. The ship's empty."

Everyone from the command staff looked at their captain. They wondered what was going through his mind. Silently Kirk tapped his console, and opened a link to the Enterprise's computer. " Computer, recognise James T. Kirk, Captain. USS Enterprise. Establish a link with Enterprise's command console with runabout."

" Authorisation required."

" Kelvin - 220304," Kirk replied. Everyone recognised the Kelvin, the ship the captain's father had sacrificed his life to save the lives of the crew...and his wife who gave birth to their son, in a shuttlecraft. Spock recognised the number sequence - the stardate Kirk had been born, and the death of his father. Uhura caught on quickly, and she closed her eyes in sympathy for the captain. This was how he chose to remember his father, by working though he remembered his father's sacrifice in his own way.

" Link established." The console in front of Kirk darkened, then it lit up again with new information. Kirk studied the information flow, pressed a few controls and an image of the bridge appeared in front of him. The wide open bridge, its consoles of the different stations, displays, the command chair.

It was all there. But there was a problem.

It was empty.

" Where's is everyone?" McCoy asked.

Kirk ignored the question, he barely heard it. Hendorff, one of the security guards, was a big man and although some may call him a thug but he was deeper than that. He was also a keen observer of body language, and he saw from Kirk's tense back how the captain was getting angrier and angrier.

Kirk took a deep breath and with an adjustment the screen changed to show engineering. Another adjustment, sickbay. Again no one.

" We're boarding the ship," Kirk announced. " I can get the computer to open the ship up for us, but when we get inside we need to secure engineering and the bridge."

* * *

Scotty had never seen the engineering decks so empty. His beloved section was completely devoid of life. When they reached the warp core, Scotty checked it over before calling the captain. He looked over at McCoy and Uhura and the security officer, Hutchinson as he took out his communicator.

" Scotty to Kirk," he said keying into Kirk's frequency.

" Kirk here."

" We've reached engineering, sir. There's no one here, and we've checked the corridors. No sign of blood, no signs of struggle. There're padds with status reports from various departments, usual thing. I was expecting things like weapons damage."

A sigh came from the communicator. " Same thing here."

McCoy looked round the engineering room. He felt useless down here. Unaware of the doctor's mood, Scotty carried on with his status report.

" There's no damage to the warp core. The dilithium chamber's okay, the naquadah generators are ticking over nicely, and the impulse engines and thrusters seem fine."

" Sounds like whatever happened it was the crew who were affected, not the ship."

McCoy stepped forwards to get the engineer's attention. The doctor gestured for the communicator. " Hold on, sir," Scotty said as he handed over the communicator to McCoy. " Dr. McCoy wants to speak to you."

McCoy spoke into the communicator. " Jim, I want to get to sickbay. I know you wanted us to stay together, but I'm no use down here. Besides I might find out what happened to the crew."

" Then again, you might not," Kirk replied, not hesitating to point out the flaw, but he gave in anyway. He wasn't in the mood to argue with McCoy.

" Okay, go, but don't go alone. Take Uhura with you."

McCoy heard Kirk's voice. Kirk's tone was brusque and bad tempered, and if anyone argued then there would've been hell to pay. The communication channel was cut down brusquely.

* * *

Kirk's mood didn't improve as his own party went through the ship. The shuttle bay had a turbolift link with the bridge and the rest of the ship, but Kirk wanted to cover more of the ship to see if there was any sign of any clue to tell what had happened to the 400 people who crewed the Enterprise. Scotty's party only had small distance to cover in the ship, but Kirk didn't. Spock hadn't said a word, clearly he'd picked up on the captain's bad mood enough to know this wasn't the time to logically point out they could take a different route. Sulu and Hendorff had picked up the vibe as well, and both men offered nothing but the most clear suggestions.

They found nothing. Scotty had described there was no person near the padds or instruments left, and Kirk had already picked that up.

As they passed an ensign's cabin, he paused. He pressed the buzzer. No response.

Kirk entered his override code into the panel and the door opened. He poked his head in. There was nothing special about the room, so he closed the door at once to shut and lock the door.

He sighed. " Let's go to the bridge. We can check the rest of the ship at another point."

Though they'd already seen the bridge from the runabout viewer, entering it was another thing. Kirk paused on the threshold. The bridge was one of his favourite places on the ship, to see it empty when he was so used to see it crewed. It being empty was strange.

Kirk walked over to one of the stations nearby. It was one of the stellar cartography stations, manned continuously all the time. It had access to the database the Enterprise had that linked the ship to Starfleet cartography, but since their arrival in the Delta Quadrant its use had reached new heights of importance to the extent new crewmembers with different backgrounds and specialties asked Spock if they could make a change in Stellar cartography. Spock had agreed when he reviewed what they could bring, and he put some of the officers on trial after consulting with Kirk to see where the Captain stood. Kirk had agreed; he'd said that the crew might need to learn new skills to reach their full potential, but he'd compromised by saying that if there was a mix up they would rectify it under the science officer's guidance.

To Kirk's knowledge it never happened, the crew had learnt of the captain's compromise, and they worked hard to make sure they didn't disappoint their captain.

Now the captain sat down in the seat in front of the console. He used his captain codes once more to check the last time this console had been used.

" This console was used last three days ago," Kirk said with a frown. Three days, in those three days Kirk and all but one of the command staff were meeting with the Mal government, the crew were being...what? Kidnapped? Killed? Enslaved? Vaporised? Kirk shook his head, get a grip on yourself.

" We left five days ago, so the Enterprise crew disappeared two days later." Hendorff worked out.

Now they had a timeline to work from. Kirk stood up and walked over to the command chair to check the log recorder. There were only a few entries posted by Chekov. Everyone who took the chair when Kirk wasn't onboard used their own unique codes to record the logs. Kirk took out his tricorder to download the logs so he could visually read them. He sat down to read them whilst the others went through the bridge. Kirk read the logs carefully. Pavel had been thorough, noting down in the logs when the survey had started, any incidents, any delays. Kirk had ordered him to take his time to survey the system so then the diplomatic mission would come back to find the crew had done something worthwhile, and Kirk trusted Pavel to take care of the ship and crew to the best of his abilities.

The logs showed the mission had gone remarkably well, but Pavel found that there was so little in the solar system that the survey crews were going over things they'd already learnt several times over. Finally Chekov had had enough, it was all there in the log, so he had left the system but he kept quite close to it and made sure to stay within range of communication with the runabout. Chekov had found an uninteresting asteroid belt, an unremarkable gas giant, and a rogue planet that was the most interesting thing though they hadn't really bothered to do much investigating there. Their deadline with rendezvous with Kirk's runabout was close at hand. Chekov had ordered the Enterprise to travel to the point where they would meet the Enterprise. " Sulu," he called the helmsman over to the command chair, " Mr Chekov recorded in the log that the Enterprise would travel to meet with the runabout, can you check the navigation station to find out if the ship made any stopoffs on the journey?"

" Sure, no problem," Sulu went over to the navigation station to check. " The ship stopped off only a few light years distant, then the ship was sent here on automatic control."

" What are you thinking, Jim?" Spock asked as he came over from his own station at Science. Kirk showed him the logs recorded in the tricorder.

" There's no entry in the logs about a full stop. Why? After this entry, there's nothing. No hint of what happened. Sulu, set a course for that point."

" Aye sir," Sulu sat down in his chair, and set the controls to pilot Enterprise back. The place where the log ended wasn't far from their current position in space, and it was barely the blink of an eye when they did arrive. Kirk was disappointed when they dropped out of warp. There was nothing here. Still they had to try. " Mr Spock, scan the vicinity for any warp or ion traces in this system," he ordered.

" Aye, sir." Spock replied, and he was just sitting down when Kirk had another order. " Also scan the ship to see if anything is missing. If the crew were kidnapped, the kidnappers may have gotten greedy and started looting the ship."

As Spock was scanning, Hendorff came to stand next to the command chair. " Is that what you think happened, sir? Someone kidnapped the others, and simply looted the ship?"

Kirk glanced at him grimly, then turned his gaze back at the tricorder. " I don't know, but its a good possibility, isn't it? More to the point it explains a great deal. But if it doesn't..." Kirk trailed off, and he held up the tricorder. " Chekov was very diligent about recording these logs, yet there's nothing here to explain why the Enterprise stopped at this set of co-ordinates. It's not like Chekov to just simply come to a sector and not note down what happened. The crew may have been taken unawares, and if that happened then I can accept that. It would also help me find them. If whoever or whatever it is that's behind this took something, we can track it down.

" After Spock's finished with the scans, we're going to head for the places Chekov surveyed. On the way we'll check out the flight recorder to find out if it recorded anything that can help us find the others. It may be the survey crews found something that transported the crew there, and the ship, obeying preset instructions headed for us. They may even have stumbled on an alien race whom the Mal confederations doesn't know about, hard as it is to believe, but its another possibility."

Hendorff was about to agree with Kirk on the ideas when Spock interrupted them. " Scans complete. There may have been something, but its' faded now."

Kirk sighed. Too late. " Mr Sulu, go into the computer to find the last place Enterprise was when Chekov was in command, and lay in a course. Spock, we're going to have a look at the flight recorder to see if it picked anything up."

* * *

The flight recorder showed Chekov sitting in the captain's chair. He was looking slightly nervous like he couldn't get used to sitting in Kirk's seat no matter how many times the opportunity arose. There was an alarm from the helm and navigation stations, galvanising the crew at once.

Kirk watched as the nervousness disappeared in Chekov's thin frame, leaving behind a commanding presence. " Vhat is it?" The Russian asked.

The officer standing in for Sulu turned to reply. " There's something in our flight path, sir," she replied. " The computer automatically shunt us out of warp-"

The image broke up there, turning into static. " What?" Kirk couldn't believe it. " It was getting to the good part! Though it does answer a question. Something did happen. Spock, fast forward the recording. Lets see what happened next."

They didn't find out. The recording was stuck on static. Every single timeframe that was on it was completely locked out, and to make matters worse it extended to the other sections of the Enterprise. The static went on from the moment the helm officer said warp. The static went all the way to the point where the shuttle arrived back.

The morale of the officers watching it dipped lower. Hendorff summed it up in one word. " Fuck!"

Spock nodded. " Fuck, indeed!"

Kirk, Sulu, and Hendorff looked at the science officer for the language.

* * *

" Maybe the Borg took them?" McCoy suggested to the others as they stood on the bridge. They'd already scoured the asteroid field and the last position of the rogue planet, and they'd found nothing. They were now warping to the solar system Chekov had been tasked with surveying.

" Right," Kirk drawled. " Why?"

" Why what?"

Kirk shrugged, and Spock finished for him having seen the flaw in the logic of the doctor's suggestion. " Why would the Borg assimilate the crew and then leave the ship full of its technology? For that matter, why they would not wait for the runabout to return?"

McCoy grunted, feeling like a fool. " Good idea, Bones, but wrong," Kirk said when he saw the look on his friend's face. " We dunno what happened to the crew after they dropped out of warp. Besides that we've already checked out the place it happened, but there's nothing there. No trace. Nothing. Zip."

Hutchinson, the dark skinned security guard, shrugged. " What do we do now then?"

Privately Kirk doubted there was anything in the solar system that would offer a clue worthwhile enough to explain the crew's disappearance, but they had to look to make sure. " We'll check out the solar system, then we'll ask the Mal confederation worlds what happened. After that," he shrugged, " I dunno. What luck with the crew communicators?" He asked Uhura.

Uhura shook her head, the long black ponytail swinging grimly with her. " No sir. The subspace booster isn't working, but according to the scans they haven't been destroyed, they're simply out of range."

Hendorff frowned at her. " How far away do they have to be for them to be out of range?

Starfleet communication engineers had always had problems with faster than light communication because, despite what it sounded like, subspace communication worked on a totally different principle to warp drive. To compensate they'd learnt how to broaden the radius by creating a weak variant of the transwarp beaming formula, but instead of space just moving the communcation signals would continue to broadcast in subspace waves that radiated outwards for 1,450 light years. It had revolutionised communication for the Federation, who'd always relied on beacon relays to communicate with planets.

The Enterprise communication system was sophisticated enough to transmit a continuous command signal that broadcasted outwards into subspace to pick them up.

Hendorff, being a security guard, didn't know that fact.

Spock sighed. " 1,450 light years, the communicators radiate subspace waves when they're away from the ship, but only special receivers can pick them up on a preset command frequency when activated it in detect mode, and we've activated it."

* * *

**_Present time. _**

* * *

**_" _**Our search brought up nothing," Kirk sighed as he carried on his personal log. " There were traces of humans, but they were four to five days old, but there was nothing fresh besides us. We've also checked the Mal confederation, quietly and through the official channels, but we haven't found anything. They either know something, or they're not saying a word. Either way we're leaving this part of the galaxy, and we're going to try and find our people from...whereever they are. So much for our second year.

" All I know is we'd better find the crew, or USS Enterprise is no more." Kirk closed his eyes. " End of recording."

* * *

**Next Time - Rumors.**


	7. Chapter 7 Rumors

**The Delta Arc. **

**Rumors. **

Captain's log - We have spent the past three weeks looking for clues to what happened to the crew since our meeting with the Mal confederation, and our inquiries have already yielded problems - false leads. We have spent nearly a month following them through. Right now we're on our way to a Mal colonyworld, where it's been claimed some of our crew are there. Whether or not this is true, I dunno. But so far we've had dozens of these false leads, and its starting to annoy us.

Captain's log - supplemental - Great. It's another rumor. A Mal officer broadcasted it offhandedly as a joke, and we picked it up. I nearly lost it down there, but the Mal seemed to realise what they'd done. I don't know, and frankly I don't care. I've already launched a rather long complaint to the Mal government with proof positive about the practical jokes, and told them that if it happens again I will not be so forgiving.

Captain's log - supplemental - Enterprise's morale is crashing, but there's little I can do for I'm having problems as well. These damn rumors don't help either.

Captain's log - We have been searching for a month and a half, and to save time and effort listening to rumors from traders, we've decided to play the undercover card. Lieutenant Uhura, Myself, and Mr Hutchinson have gotten jobs at a bar where lowlife scum frequent. Still, considering my background I should fit in right at home.

Captain's log - supplemental - At last! A positive lead. There's a race in a nearby system that have recently begun to travel through space, but they move via transportation rather than space flight. It's been stated on many occasions they accidentally shunt people from passing ships or on nearby planets to their worlds where they are interrogated for a brief time before they're returned. Are my crew there?

Captain's log - supplemental - We've arrived at the homeworld of the alien race who are known as the Mozari. So far our diplomatic overtures are being received with great enthusiasm, though whether it continues is an open question.

Captain's log - supplemental - Great! We've come all this way for nothing. The transportation technology exists, and it did do as the people in the bar spoke about, but the Mozari have developed a passable warp drive so they've seen no reason why they should keep the transportation technology though they have in case it might come in handy in the near future. Besides that their territory is tiny in comparison with others in this region, and to make matters worse there is no human life whatsoever here. We are still investigating the possibility the transportation technology may have been activated, but it doesn't look promising.

Captain's log - supplemental - The Mozari are in the clear. We're still searching.


End file.
